Heh Heh... There's a NAME for what I do!

[Christ]

Not so much on my side anymore, but yes, we both have, and I personally would again. I've gotten food from dumpsters and throwaways that I can't afford when it's on the shelves, even when I was making $25+/hour.

When's the last time you had prime rib cuts, veal cutlets, beef/bacon filets... every night for 2 weeks?

I dunno about you guys, but those beef/bacon filets are like $5 for 2.5 or 3oz... and I can eat 2-3 of them with veggies on the side. There's never been a time I could/would afford that, but if it's free, who am I to turn up my nose?

[Christ]

Originally Posted by bestclimb

The scariest thing about flying is the drive to the airport. Really there is a lot in aviation that can bite you, it's all about identifying hazards, reducing and mitigating risks, and making informed safe choices.

And not walking the wrong way through checkpoints in airports... [heckle heckle]

[bestclimb]

Originally Posted by Christ

And not walking the wrong way through checkpoints in airports... [heckle heckle]

Pretty crazy. You know they weren't sneaking anything in there as it don't take a rocket surgeon to get something past the winners at the booths.

Heck the airline gave my wife and her friend both boarding passes with my wife's name on them and the TSA officer verifying ids missed it when my wife's friend handed them her id and my wife's boarding pass. On another flight I was found with a single round of ammo, troubling thing was that I had gone on 6 trips with that bag as a carry on after I had used it for a range bag (they and I had missed the round 11 times going through security)

[Christ]

I just don't fly.

[MadisonMPG]

Originally Posted by Christ

I just don't fly.

It makes my arms tired.

[Christ]

Tricky.

[Cd]

Sort of off topic but 'sorta' along the same topic : At my job, we throw away tons of products each year that have virtually nothing wrong with them.
For example, one that comes to mind was this tool box :



Do you know what was wrong with it ?

Get this ... there is a built in radio within the tool chest. The customer returned it because the antenna broke.
( a typical radio antenna attached to the back with four screws. )

Rather than have the company ship a new antenna, our genius bosses decided to get store credit on the chest. Since the cost of shipping the chest ( $ 1898 ) back to the merchant would have been greater than the cost of scrapping it, it was destroyed without so much as grease mark it.
When I walked back to receiving, the guys were smashing it with a hammer and spray painting it. Lowe's policy is that a product that is still good has to be destroyed so that it can not be used again. This is to prevent any underhand theft.

Such a shame what greed has done, that it has to come to this.

I called corporate about the matter, and the environmental department manager there seemed genuinely concerned about it. As he pointed out, there is also a 'fridge built into the chest that should have been drained of gasses before disposal.

In years past, as I have opened the compactor, I have seen all sorts of horrible things that have been thrown away, such as mowers filled with gas, paints, muriatic acid, .... I have to wonder how many times that people can do something like that without starting a fire !!

Yet another thing that comes to mind was an entire truckload of roses that came in. They were marked wrong and thrown away only hours after arrival .

If someone is scheduled wrong and the plants go a few days without water they go into the dumpster.

My grandfather used to work for Alcoa. He recalled them disposing of all sorts of things in to the bay, such as vehicles filled with gas and oil, batteries, poisons ... you name it.

It's no wonder that Calhoun County was rated as the most toxic place in America just a few years back. ( And my parents grew up drinking that water ..... say .....I wonder if that s why I'm so crazy ! )

O.K. back on topic. Sorry Frankie

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Cd

Sort of off topic but 'sorta' along the same topic : At my job, we throw away tons of products each year that have virtually nothing wrong with them.
For example, one that comes to mind was this tool box :



Do you know what was wrong with it ?

Get this ... there is a built in radio within the tool chest. The customer returned it because the antenna broke.
( a typical radio antenna attached to the back with four screws. )

Rather than have the company ship a new antenna, our genius bosses decided to get store credit on the chest. Since the cost of shipping the chest ( $ 1898 ) back to the merchant would have been greater than the cost of scrapping it, it was destroyed without so much as grease mark it.
When I walked back to receiving, the guys were smashing it with a hammer and spray painting it. Lowe's policy is that a product that is still good has to be destroyed so that it can not be used again. This is to prevent any underhand theft.

Such a shame what greed has done, that it has to come to this.

I called corporate about the matter, and the environmental department manager there seemed genuinely concerned about it. As he pointed out, there is also a 'fridge built into the chest that should have been drained of gasses before disposal.

In years past, as I have opened the compactor, I have seen all sorts of horrible things that have been thrown away, such as mowers filled with gas, paints, muriatic acid, .... I have to wonder how many times that people can do something like that without starting a fire !!

Yet another thing that comes to mind was an entire truckload of roses that came in. They were marked wrong and thrown away only hours after arrival .

If someone is scheduled wrong and the plants go a few days without water they go into the dumpster.

My grandfather used to work for Alcoa. He recalled them disposing of all sorts of things in to the bay, such as vehicles filled with gas and oil, batteries, poisons ... you name it.

It's no wonder that Calhoun County was rated as the most toxic place in America just a few years back. ( And my parents grew up drinking that water ..... say .....I wonder if that s why I'm so crazy ! )

O.K. back on topic. Sorry Frankie

I've always wanted one of those boxes... it's one of my dreams of grandeur, though. I know I'll never need it, but why the hell not?

As for the idiots beating on it, at least it helped them to not go beat on someone else after work... *wink*.

[Frank Lee]

That's... just... heartbreaking!

P.S. People are stupid.

[SentraSE-R]

Originally Posted by bestclimb

The assumption that 99.9% off food is good and a day later 25% has gone past good is a pretty wide assumption. If .1% of food is bad in your life when you buy 1000 packages of food 1 will make you sick seems like a pretty high % of hazardous food.

I am going to use Peter to illustrate my point. If he has twice gotten sick from food and he is ~30 years old(a guess given population distribution he is likely older, though he may be younger), subtracting the first 10 years of his life for not remembering times he may have gotten sick when younger. So for the last 20 years sick twice. that's once every 10 years. 10 years times 365 days times 3 meals a day times 3 ingredients (a swag) equals 32850 products he has been exposed to per 1 that made him sick. Peter has been exposed to 99.997% safe food or only .003% unsafe food. Given the buffer manufactures put into there sell by/use by dates I should think using found food from a frequently observed source would be pretty safe.

I am not likely to go dumpster diving even now that I figure it is way safer than I would have thought it would be. Mostly because I am not a bum, it violates social norms, and diggin in the trash for food seems...well trashy. I do definitely see a place for "expired" food in food banks and what not. It does not make sense to just fill landfills with food that could be used by folks that could use it.

I like your attempt to quantify the risk, but some of your assumptions are incorrect. The risk of food poisoning is much higher than you think. This Wiki article puts it at 30% of the population each year, even in industrialized countries. 76 million cases in the USA every year, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths. 2.1 million deaths worldwide in 2000. Those are frighteningly high figures. Peter and Christ and Frank are either incredibly lucky, remarkably careful, remarkably tough, or are under-reporting their illnesses - likely attributing food poisoning to "flu" or indigestion.

I didn't link most food poisoning to commercially packaged food, because most of it comes from mishandling food in the home.