Freegans of New York. Why New Yorkers eat food from the trash | RT Documentary

The New York freegans don’t spend money on food, because they can find perfectly good food discarded in the nearest trashcan. Freegans can afford to buy groceries, but they opt to go dumpster diving. When retailers and cafes don’t sell everything, the food invariably ends up in bags on the sidewalks. Fruit, pastry, bread, canned and other processed food goes to waste, because the expiration date is looming, or the produce just doesn’t look perfect anymore. Dumpster diving is a way to tackle the food waste problem, according to freegans. Between 30-40 percent of the US food supply, or 100 million tonnes of food, is wasted. It means that almost one fifth of the farmland and four trillion gallons of water is wasted too. Freegans strive for more sustainable lives in an increasingly consumerist economy. Freegans are confident that it’s not shameful to rummage through the trash in search of dinner. They encourage businesses to donate food instead of throwing it away. In the meantime, volunteers serve meals cooked