An Australian TikToker has shown off the crazy amount of fruit and vegetables he salvaged after going dumpster diving behind a supermarket.
Luca Corby filmed himself dumpster diving in Canberra to prove just how much fresh produce gets thrown out each day, captioning the video: “Anywaysss f**k big corporations.”
Mr Corby and two friends donned head torches before heading to a nearby store and taking a look in the bins.
“Food is expensive at the moment, so let’s go dumpster diving” he said.
First off, the group managed to salvage a number of potatoes, carrots, leeks and a huge knob of ginger, which Mr Corby estimated to be worth about $20.
“Look at this lettuce, it is literally fresh. There is a couple of dead leaves on the outside but the inside is all fresh,” he said.
The group also found rhubarb, mandarins, capsicums, oranges, grapes and asparagus.
Mr Corby filmed himself the following day explaining once they game home they washed all the fruit and vegetables and put them in the fridge.
“Our fridge is stocked for the next week. Our groceries for this week were essentially free,” he said.
“It’s crazy because we just went to a small supermarket, but you can imagine Coles and Woolworths would be throwing out so much stuff while families are struggling to buy fresh vegetables.”
A few weeks earlier, Mr Corby shared a picture of the huge amount of fresh produce his friend sourced after it was thrown out at a local IGA.
“Literally so many people are struggling to buy fresh produce at the moment and this is how much food my friend got dumpster diving yesterday,” he said.
“That was all going to go in the bin. That’s f**ked.”
The first video has clocked up more than 70,000 views, with many people shocked at how much fresh produce had been thrown away.
“This is so heartbreaking to see. The food looks so fresh. People are struggling right now,” one person said.
“So much wastage!” another wrote.
Another added: “Well done! It’s an absolute crime that those perfectly good foods can be thrown in the trash.”
Both Woolworths and Coles have initiatives in place to reduce food waste in their stores.
Woolworths has implemented a Food Rescue and Recycling Program to help stores identify and divert surplus fresh food away from landfill, instead using it for things like hunger relief, animal stock feed at local farms and zoos, or for commercial composting.
The supermarket giant works with OzHarvest, Foodbank and FareShare to make left over edible food available to local hunger relief agencies.
Coles has introduced its Together to Zero Waste initiative to help reduce food waste across its stores.
“Our first choice for unsold, edible food is to donate it to food rescue organizations such as SecondBite and Foodban,” the supermarket states in its website.
“Following that, we have other food waste solutions including donations to farmers and animal or wildlife services, organics collections and in-store food waste disposal equipment.”
Coles also uses produce that would typically not be sold in other products, such as bananas being used in frozen banana pieces, banana bread and muffins.
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