Seniors Zach Garrett and Zane Miller both have a passion for film and a thing for adventure. That’s what got them eating cheese out of a Trader Joe’s dumpster in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Garrett and Miller are members of the Pepperdine Film Society a student club inaugurated last spring to encourage and support campus cinematic ventures. The society brought documentary filmmaker Jeremy Seifert to Elkins Auditorium on Tuesday evening for a screening of his documentary “Dive.”
The movie chronicles the story of Seifert and his friends as they expose the habits of many L.A. supermarkets. Seifert uncovers thousands of pounds of what he considers perfectly edible food sitting in dumpsters— straight from the shelves and in the original packaging ready for “divers” to uncover and eat.
According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates about 96 billion pounds of food are thrown away each year. Food safety regulations often mandate that expiration dates come before food actually goes bad. Thus the expired food ends up in dumpsters in the parking lots of stores.
Miller and Garrett thought it might be fun to go on a “dive” with Seifert the night before the screening hoping to show the attendees what they uncovered and lend credibility to the movie as a current issue.
The midnight adventure began when Garrett and Miller arrived at Seifert’s home in Highland Park just before midnight Monday. The hopped in Seifert’s 1980 Subaru hatchback and with a healthy backfire or two from the engine they hit the streets.
The first Trader Joe’s location was a bust. Mountains of trash billowed over the dumpsters but Seifert wasn’t impressed.
“The towering trash!” Seifert whispered with awed excitement. “I don’t know if there’s any food in there but there sure is a lot of trash. Oh man this is going to be messy. Cause if there’s food it’s probably way down in there.”
When Miller found a box of questionable fruit Seifert turned it into a teaching moment.
“Just think about this in terms of the environment he said. I mean just this. You can’t eat this obviously but you have berries inside which should be composted.”
He continued “They [Trader Joe’s] put it in recyclable packaging but they themselves don’t recycle.”
Seifert thought that under all that trash there might have been some edible food but it wasn’t worth it. A couple years ago he said he might have gone for it but he was getting picky with his experience.
At the next Trader Joe’s Seifert jumped a fence to find a locked dumpster.
“Some of my friend’s won’t jump fences Seifert said. They’ll only go to dumpsters where there’s no fence. But I don’t really have a problem jumping fences to get hundreds of dollars worth of food.”
Seifert said that particular dumpster was locked about half the times he went there. After Seifert’s dumpster diving escapades were featured on a National Public Radio program he was granted a meeting with a spokesperson from Trader Joe’s the opportunity to talk about the locked dumpster issue.
“If your response to all this is just locking your dumpsters he told the company employee, then I’m going to be watching you.
“That’s is an easy response for them Seifert continued, just to lock the dumpsters and not worry about it.”
According to a report by the Washington Post stores discourage dumpster diving because of liability issues related to people eating potentially hazardous food.
“We would not recommend removing Trader Joe’s items from the dumpsters for the simple reason that these items have been evaluated by our crew as questionable to donate due to safety concerns a company spokesperson told the Post in a prepared statement.
But the next location held the bounty for the trash hunters. On the way to Bristol Farms Seifert decided to scope out a Trader Joe’s location he was skeptical about— skeptical he said because the employees usually hang around in the parking lot for hours after the store closes.
The parking lot was empt
y. Seifert parked the Subaru and the divers stepped out of the car and walked over to the dumpster. They hopped a wall and began to dig.
The contents of the dumpster confused Seifert a bit. Usually he said the sacks of edible food were separated from the “trash and are easy to access. This dumpster, though, seemed to have a diverse geography of edible nuggets and disgusting garbage all mixed together.
“Look at this! They mixed it all together!” Seifert accused. “These guys really don’t like dumpster divers they don’t.”
But the trio found some edible items such as boxes of figs ripe and ready to eat. Garrett ripped open the tape on a sealed box to reveal imported olives from Greece. They found dozens of eggs still cool to the touch. Seifert explained that if the eggs sink in water they’re still good to eat.
“There’s so much right here Seifert said. It must weigh a thousand pounds.”
The veteran diver’s voice filled with excitement as he pulled out a package of wild salmon.
But “getting fish out of a dumpster is a bit precarious he said. Like if this were a dumpster and there’s just like three big trash bags and everything’s ice cold and it’s obvious that they just set it in here I’d eat it right here.”
Miller and Garrett laughed.
“That could make you so sick you could die Seifert said, his words hanging heavy with disappointment, his eyes locked longingly on the packaging. But look at that wild salmon.”
When Seifert pulled out a package of “sliced jalapeño yogurt cheese they just had to try it. Seifert ripped open a package, tried a slice, liked it, and then handed pieces to Miller and Garrett for them to try it. He warned them not to use their dumpster fingers” to handle it.
“Taste it enjoy it Seifert told them. They both seemed to like it.
“If I wanted to be in cahoots with this guy who was making a bold statement on waste management and hunger Garrett said afterward of his dumpster-cheese taste test, I needed to take part and cross that personal barrier of mine.
“The food was in good condition he continued. It was in a store probably earlier that day. It was packaged just like it would be if it was on the shelf. The only thing that had changed was the location.
The last stop of the night was at the Bristol Farms location. They didn’t find anything there.
But at the end of the night the group came away with five dozen eggs a loaf of pricey bread green beans asparagus five cases of figs an assortment of fancy cheeses and several cartons of Grecian olives.
About 50 people showed up for the screening Tuesday night and Garrett said he was happy with the turnout especially since those who came asked serious questions and understood the movie’s message.