A care worker who is ‘sickened’ by trash claims she ate for free for a month by ‘waiting around bins’ outside shops, saving hundreds of pounds worth of fresh produce that would otherwise be tossed aside. Jill Bennett, a ‘freegan,’ states she eats three meals a day for free and donates plenty of food to her community as she began waiting outside shops for excess stock to be thrown out.
The 62-year-old saw a shop employee throw out more than 10 bags of food, including fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, and ready meals, and was ‘sickened’ at the notion of it going to waste. So she carried it home with her, where she was surprised to find more than £200 worth of edible grub.
Jill began standing outside businesses at ‘throwing out time’ every Sunday to stop the staff before they dumped the things, terrified at the prospect of fresh food being thrown away so frequently. Jill has been living only on the produce she finds for the past month, eating lamb chops, whole chickens, ready dinners, curries, apple pies, and gourmet chocolates.
Jill, from Northampton, East Midlands, stated that she has been eating for free for a month now and she has eaten nicer, fresher food than she has ever had. Every day, she consumes fresh meals. Yesterday, she had scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, potato, spinach, and tomato curry for lunch, with the only items she had herself being oil and spices, she had roasted vegetables and apple pie for dinner.
She eats healthily every day and has plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. She discovers meat, lamb chops, whole birds, ready dinners, pastries, chocolate, fresh fruit and vegetables, all on a date, every week. She doesn’t accept expired items or look in old bins for expired food. Ten minutes earlier, all of the food would have been sold.
Every single day, all of this food is thrown out in every single shop, and it’s criminal. Individuals can’t afford to pay their bills and eat because of food poverty and food waste. Five minutes away, businesses are throwing out perfectly fine food, and the government says there isn’t an issue since individuals don’t know how to cook or budget. It makes her feel bad.
It made me assume that this happens in every single establishment in every town and city. Jill was doing her weekly grocery shopping at her local supermarket when she noticed an employee preparing to throw out more than ten bags of groceries and chose to intercede.
Jill was ‘gobsmacked’ to see more than £200 worth of food that had yet to expire when the staff gave it. Jill gathers at least two garbage bags full of edible food every Sunday and brings it home to distribute with her neighbors.
Jill stated that went to her local store, and as she walked in, a member of staff came out with a large amount of food in bin bags. ‘Surely they’re not going to throw that away,’ she reasoned, and followed her. She pulled over, asked if she might take it, and she handed it to her. She had never done anything like that before. There were around ten bin bags full of food. When she looked, she thought to herself, ‘bloody hell.’
She was stunned, appalled, happy, and aroused all at the same time. She was overjoyed to be able to conserve and distribute the food. There was simply too much for her to carry home.
She went to the neighboring village’s grocery store. When she went into the bin that time, she discovered roughly £200 worth of chocolates and flowers that had been discarded. All of the chocolates were not expired, and all of the flowers were fresh, so she returned home and shared them all.
Everybody was ecstatic. She returned the next week and waited for throwing out time at 3.30pm, when the manager came out and was ready to toss it in the bin, so she got out of her car and inquired him if he was binning it, and he gave it to her, saying he dislikes dumping all the food away.
She has returned at 3.30pm every day since then, waited for them, and taken the meal. This month, she saved roughly £100 that she would have spent on food, and she shared four times as much of it with her local community.
Jill is sharing her enlightening takes in the hopes of raising awareness about how much food is wasted and encouraging stores to cut back. She explained that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to wait around a dumpster, but it’s in every store. Individuals must believe that they are capable of doing so on a practical level. She has been given a lot of the food, she hasn’t scavenged because she begged for it.
It’s horrible that this much food is thrown out by stores around the country. This is a very practical and political issue for her. She eats for free and eats well, yet she is enthusiastic about food waste and feels that something has to be done about it.
Particularly nowadays when folks are battling to pay their bills and feed their families.
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