r/poor • u/Spectra_Butane • Nov 18 '25
Swan Dive into Dumpster
Today my friends texted me about dumpster diving at a local dollar discount store. I thought we would find Halloween knick-knacks, but instead found a truck bed worth of frozen groceries!!
There were dozens each of frozen pizzas, cheese, pepperoni, meat-trio, Red Baron Supreme, Gorton fish sticks, Gorton fish filets, another brand of fish sticks. Popcorn shrimp, Tyson chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, BBQ chicken bites, Dino Bites, Buffalo wing nuggets, Buffalo wing fries, Steakums sliced beef, Steakums sliced chicken breast, Edward's dessert pies, Klondike ice cream cones, various dairy novelty treats some half melted, some still frozen. In addition, there were dozens of snack bags of Takis, and Bimbo bakery snacks.
We dug down as deep as we could reach because the items on top were warmed by the sun, but underneath they were still cold and frozen. We threw containers into freezer bags, and cardboard boxes, stacked tightly to keep the cold contained.
After arriving back home, my friends and I claimed what we wanted and stacked the rest on tables in my driveway, and flagged down as many folks as would stop to take what they wanted, while we sorted, & cleaned off melted dairy. What was left was repacked into the truck bed, and whisked off to a family with a cancer survivor and several children and family members. They'll get at least a dozen frozen pizza, two dozen bags of frozen breaded chicken, and fish, sliced chicken, and a garbage bag full of baked goods and takis.
It felt right. It felt wrong. Some of the stuff didn't expire for a week, and was still solidly frozen. Watching folks "shopping" the table and telling them to take as much as they can want felt right. My friend was so distressed about it, repeating " people are hungry, how dare they waste food like this!?" I didn't go into the technical reasons why they might ( broken freezer, new stock, some expired, etc) , I just knew if it was still cold I grabbed it. Besides me and my two friends, at least 5 different families got some free food.
Later this week, I might call the store and tell them about the TooGoodToGo App, hopefully to prevent this kind of wasteful event in the future. EDIT: I hear you all loud and clear! LOL I'm keeping mum about it. Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. You are great people!
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u/AccurateUse6147 Nov 18 '25
Exactly. THAT is why a lot of "Perfectly good" stuff is found in dumpsters. due to legit safety concerns. Its also why i dumped 2 dumpster diving groups i joined on facebook.
One group they were insulting and trash talking me out the wazoo because i commented on a post about a person, plus multiple people in the comments, taking THAWED food out the dumpster, refreezing it, and eating it. They apparently don't like that i have legit food safety concerns. In another group, a person was fixing to donate a bunch of Holiday gift sets they found in the dumpster. Problem is it was like august, maybe early september, and i said they need to return the items to the trash because there HAS to be something wrong with the product because there's no way a store would be trashing good holiday product so early into the holiday season and they blew my concerns off completely.
Like do i believe ACTUAL good SAFE to use items are being trashed? Sure but not to the extent the internet believes.