Transcriber: Ilka Marvez Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
I am Matt Smith.
Or some of you may know me as Dumpster Dan.
And I am a dumpster diver.
Over the past year and a half,
I've rescued over 40,000 dollars worth of food,
electronics
and clothing.
All from dumpsters.
And I've donated almost all of it to local charities.
Now, the image you have of dumpster divers,
it might not be entirely accurate.
Not all of us are homeless, and not all of us are hippies.
And you might also think that dumpster diving,
it's a little bit out there, it's a little nasty.
And occasionally, it can be.
But more importantly, I think it gives us a firsthand look
at some of the biggest issues within our current food system.
And the biggest issue that I've encountered
with my dumpster diving
is undoubtedly food waste.
In America, our notorious waste habits
lead to the upwards of 40% of our food supply
ending up directly in the trash -
most of it before it even reaches the shelves of stores.
Now, no system can exist with a 40% loss rate
without having some serious consequences.
And keep in mind, all this waste is occurring while one in six Americans
and one in five American children struggle with food insecurity,
meaning they lack consistent access to food.
And the actual act of wasting food,
it has much deeper implications than we normally consider.
Think of everything it takes to grow a single crop:
there's the water resources, the soil nutrients,
any chemical treatments.
There's some petroleum products used to harvest, to process
and to transport the crop.
And on top of all that, there's human labor.
When we waste food, all those inputs are also being wasted as well.
And apart from that, there's further environmental consequences.
When food is dumped in some of these appalling quantities,
most of it isn't in contact with oxygen,
and the microorganisms that decompose this food,
they release methane gas instead of the typical carbon dioxide.
And keep in mind that methane gas is twenty times more potent
at retaining heat within the atmosphere,
which makes it a substantial contributor to global warming.
Now, I should take a step back here
and explain what led me to digging through storage dumpsters
and talking about trash for fun.
And it all began with my passion for distance running.
However, in my junior year of high school,
I took exercise and nutrition a step too far.
And before I knew it, I was locked into the death grips of anorexia.
I was depressed, I was isolated and frankly, I was dying.
I was running up to eight hours a day.
And it was during this time that I was hospitalized for three weeks.
And while in the hospital,
I knew I had to find something else I was passionate about.
And I had watched a few videos on dumpster diving,
and I knew I had to give it a try.
And that's exactly what I did.
As soon as I got out, I gave it a shot.
And instantly,
I was hooked just by the sheer amount of valuable items I was finding.
And I began diving everywhere,
and within a single month,
I'd stockpiled an entire room in my family's basement
completely full of food.
And I had no clue what to do with it all.
So that's when I began donating it to nursing homes, to food pantries,
to senior centers.
And when I donated the food, they always had the same question for me:
"Why are stores throwing out so much perfectly safe, healthy, edible food?"
And for stores, it comes down to economics for them.
They're not a charity, and they're not supposed to be.
But it's not entirely their fault either.
Because of our aesthetic taste,
stores place standards on the type of produce that enters into the store,
only allowing the best looking ones in and discarding the rest.
And similarly, our obsession with expiration dates
contributes to a massive amount of waste as well.
The USDA has stated that sell-by dates, use-by dates, best-by dates,
they all have very little to do with health and safety.
And instead, they're there to signify
when food is at "peak freshness" or "peak flavor,"
not that it's necessarily unsafe to eat.
And stores have an excuse for all this waste.
If they were to donate it and someone was to consume it and get sick,
the store would be faced with a string of law suits,
and that would likely ruin the reputation of their company.
But that's what they want you to think.
In reality, they're protected by the Good Samaritan Act of 1996.
And it protects all people that donate food to non-profits in good faith.
And the University of Arkansas Law School,
they have confirmed that there has never been a single case
of anyone ever being sued for donating food.
So essentially, it's a non-issue.
And in a similar way, us dumpster divers, we face a legal gray area as well.
Even though it's legal to dive in Grand Rapids,
we're still putting ourselves at risk for being charged with trespassing,
prowling at night or disorderly conduct.
So, what does all of this information mean for our daily lives?
And there are several things we can do to reduce our own personal food waste.
We can challenge expiration dates.
We can organize our refrigerators and our cupboards,
keeping the oldest food up front to prioritize that.
And we can also keep our family and our children in on this process
to teach them frugal food habits as well.
And the next step would be to actually volunteer your time.
There are dozens of homeless shelters and food pantries
within the Grand Rapids area,
and they rely almost exclusively on volunteer work
to provide meals to those in need.
But sometimes, I take a step back, and I realize that all these efforts,
they're only rescuing a very small fraction
of the total food waste in America.
And every year, us Americans, we waste 165 billion dollars worth of food.
And I'll throw a number out there.
Let's say that dumpster divers,
that we rescue 500,000 dollars worth of food a year.
In comparison to that 165 billion,
we're merely rescuing three ten-thousandths of a percent
of the total food waste that goes on.
And that leads me to the question:
Is it worth spending my time digging through dumpsters
to only rescue a minuscule amount of waste?
And in a broader sense,
is it worth spending our time, our money and our energy
trying to make a difference
even though our efforts seem hopeless of causing any change?
And personally, with that mindset,
I think we're losing the end goal of our mission with it.
We're not all called to create some overhauling change in society,
but we are responsible for those around us.
For me, the victory's seeing that one child smile
when I give him a toy I've just found
or helping a single mother lower her grocery bill
by however much it was that week
just to make it a little more bearable for her.
When we take initiative like this
day after day, week after week, month after month,
that's when our actions slowly start to piece themselves together.
What we once thought was useless, was a complete waste of our time,
those efforts, they now start to accumulate,
and they spread a much larger message than we ever could've imagined.
For me, I was dumpster diving for fun.
Then, I was dumpster diving for food.
And now, I am dumpster diving to raise funds to build wells in Africa.
When it comes down to it,
we don't have to be rich, we don't have to be famous,
and we don't have to be some radical activists
with our whole lives devoted to just a single cause.
Oftentimes, I think we dismiss our powerful potential to cause change
because we believe that we're too young, we're too old, we're too busy
or even we're too tired.
In reality, we can be a high school student,
we can be a college student,
or we can be working away at a nine-to-five job,
and we can still find ways to improve our community.
We simply have to be aware of the inefficiencies
and sufferings around us,
and we have to be willing to work
for the people that are stuck in these situations.
I think Oscar the Grouch, ironically the character who lives in a trash can,
that he sums it up best.
And Oscar says, "Just because your life is trash,
that doesn't mean you can't do great things.
It's called a 'garbage can,' not a 'garbage can not.'"
Thank you, everyone.
(Applause)
(Thank you)