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| Behind an Albertson's in Lynnwood, Fred Miller scavenges for food through a dumpster. A 30-year veteran of scavenging, his haul landed him some yogurt, butter, a smoothie, apple sauce, and light bulbs. Photo by Jon Vachon |
Seven p.m. Dinnertime. And as an early evening rain tapers off, Fred Miller approaches a pair of dumpsters behind a Trader Joe’s in Lynnwood, an empty backpack in hand.
The dumpsters, green and squat, face each other like mirror reflections and, slipping between them, he eases back the lid to the one on his left. Alongside it, Miller finds, then upends, an empty six-gallon plastic bucket. Using it as a step stool, he lifts one leg up and into the dumpster’s gaping mouth. The second follows right behind. Out comes a wind-up flashlight from a coat pocket. And crouching down, Miller starts scavenging for food. “As far as I know,” he says, “this isn’t illegal.”
Slapped on the side of the dumpsters are warning stickers: “CAUTION: Do not play in, or around or occupy this container for any purpose.”
Down near his feet he locates a carton of French toast, torn open, though the inner bag is intact. Rooting around he locates a box filled with pint-sized containers of cranberry-orange relish. Inspecting the seal, he says, “I think I’ve got another carton at home.” Regardless, he places it, slathered in relish from an opened container, on the second dumpster’s lid. He aims his flashlight back to the trash.
Hunched down in the dumpster, Miller, 49, can’t be seen by anyone in the vicinity. Not that he’s trying to hide anything. He’s been eating food from dumpsters ever since he turned 18. While he’s had a few hard times since then, he says he does it because, along with being a cheapskate, he wanted to minimize his negative impact on the Earth.
“I consider myself a scavenger, along with crows and seagulls and earthworms,” Miller explained in his kitchen earlier that evening, a cutting board of scavenged zucchini bread on the table next to him. “If you don’t have scavenging, then the waste just piles up.” He smiles. “What we call a pile of shit, there’s a beetle out there that says, ‘Oh, boy, that’s the stuff.’”
But since evolution cast him as a human, not a dung beetle, Miller must be content with the food Lynnwood has chosen to throw out.
Back at the strip mall, fully within the dumpster, he nudges bags aside. Stooped over, he can’t see the mall employee nearby, visible in a rectangle of light in the rear entrance of Half Price Books as she loads garbage into a shopping cart.
Like a gopher popping out of its hole, Miller stands upright, hands empty save for his flashlight. Crawling out of the dumpster, he says, “That’s one of the lightest hauls I’ve ever had.”
Ignoring the empty dumpster, he tosses the relish in his backpack before heading to another dumpster, this one blue, set behind an Albertson’s. Hissing orange sodium lights illuminate the way.
Twice the size of the one he’s just vacated, the blue dumpster has small metal doors on its sides that slide open like a receptionist’s glass window. Pushing one open, Miller pokes the top half of his body inside. Almost immediately, he begins pulling out items: cans of food without labels; plastic containers of applesauce; a can opener; two compact fluorescent light bulbs. He places them in a shopping cart right behind him.
To it, he adds Yoplait® yogurt, strawberry. Next, a bottle of DANNON™ Light & Fit™ Smoothie. Overturning clear plastic bags, he grabs hold of a one-pound package of butter covered with bright orange stickers. Written on them in big, black type: DO NOT SELL. “OK,” Miller chuckles, “I won’t.”
He chucks it in with the rest of his booty. After removing a pack of cream cheese, two packages of fresh mozzarella and squeezable Cheez Whiz®, he squirrels it all away in the backpack. He tries his luck with the dumpster’s other sliding door. Balancing his waist on the door’s sill, he paws through more plastic bags.
There’s a sound yards away Miller can’t hear, the squeaky wheel of a shopping cart. Pushing it is the Half Price Books employee, making her way to a dumpster near the one Miller abandoned. She unloads her trash and turns to reenter the store, but as she begins moving, she stops. She stares at Miller’s legs sticking out of the dumpster. She hesitates. Then walks over.
“What are you doing?” she asks. On her head, she’s wearing a Santa cap, the white ball brushing her left temple.
Easing himself out of the dumpster, Miller replies, “Getting food.”
“We’ll call the police if we find you in there,” she tells him.
Miller gazes at her, slightly perplexed, rainwater beading his eyeglasses.
“We’ve been told to call in anyone if we see them in the dumpster.”
Miller shrugs. “About done anyway.”
“I’ll call, and if you’re still here,” she reiterates, “you’ll be arrested.” The cap’s white ball bounces as she heads back to Half Price Books.
“First time it’s happened here,” says Miller, zipping up his pack. “Wasn’t much of a haul anyway.”
Meager haul or no, Lynnwood police say scavenging for food is no crime. “It is not illegal to just simply go in a dumpster and look for items,” says police spokesperson Shannon Sessions.
Returning to his home, Miller spreads out his spoils on the kitchen table. On one face of the butter package, someone has scrawled in pen: BAD. “Maybe it’s rancid,” Miller says. “If it is, I’ll just throw it away.”
The rest of the items are destined for the fridge and, later, his stomach. He says that in the 30-plus years he’s been scavenging food, he’s never gotten sick. Not once. “Part of it is just learning from the dumpster,” he says.
And while he admits to being no purist when it comes to scavenging — he didn’t find his glasses in a dumpster, after all, or the fillings in his teeth — he says he does so because consuming what others throw away is in line with his desire to live in accord with the planet. “Getting food from the dumpster,” says Miller, “it helps me keep my perspective.”
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