Frugalism

[PeZook]

They have to look out for their potential liability. If somebody eats old food donated by a business and gets sick, you can bet your ass he'll try to sue them.

There was a baker in Warsaw who every day would give unsold bread away to the homeless. He did that for years on end, and then the tax office came in and assraped him, demanding he pay all the tax he owed for the bread he gave away.

He had to close down the bakery and left the country. No business owner now gives food to the homeless, they toss it all away.

[Shroom Man 777]

Speaking as someone who spent time in a hospital for a gastrointestinal illness, sometimes patients don't eat simply because they're sick. The would offer me more food than they expected me to eat, hoping to stimulate my appetite or something. It wasn't that the food sucked (it actually didn't) or that I wasn't hungry, it's just they my body couldn't handle much more than a tiny amount.

But yeah, I hated seeing the part I couldn't eat go to waste. But a hospital is different than what I do on a daily basis.

Hrm... you have a point. Can't really blame the patients for not wanting to eat. But these disposal procedures are just downright shameful. There should be some form of recycling or something... save those unspoiled watermelons for the poor and needy!

[Broomstick]

There's the problem with contagion - at the time I have a contagious GI infection. I was in a private room because of it and for part of the time I could have still been contagious, so anything I touched could, potentially, have been a problem. The sealed food would be OK, but the wrapper around it might not be. That wouldn't apply in all cases, but at least for some it could.

Or else the people making the rules could simply be total pricks.

It's not unusual for hospital staff to sample the leftovers, it's been that way for years.

[PeZook]

Hospitals are very different from normal life, though. They do all sorts of wasteful things in order to prevent the spread of disease, like disposable syringes, one-use surgical coveralls etc.

[Broomstick]

Yes. Due to real health issues they do and will continue to "waste" many things.

However, if everyone else cleaned up their act society could afford the different requirements of hospitals. Hospitals have a reason to throw stuff out, many other businesses do not, not to mention private homes.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, I am very certain that the same wastefulness applies to things from fastfood joints and restaurants to homes. At least we recycle the bones and scraps for our dogs.

Yeah, hospitals are a lousy example of that stuff. They have to waste things and it's understandable. But I'm sure if we saw the kitchens of hotels and restaurants, we'd all weep.

Oh. In the case of highly contagious peoples, like those with tuberculosis, we gave 'em disposable styrofoam food containers instead of reusable plastic plates and stuff.

Bad joke: Disposable containers for disposable people!

[The Grim Squeaker]

Well, I am very certain that the same wastefulness applies to things from fastfood joints and restaurants to homes. At least we recycle the bones and scraps for our dogs.

Yeah, hospitals are a lousy example of that stuff. They have to waste things and it's understandable. But I'm sure if we saw the kitchens of hotels and restaurants, we'd all weep.

A friend of my father started a charity that takes all the "Spare" food from restaurants, hotels and the like (they they'd otherwise throw away, despite it being perfectly edible and reasonably fresh) and gets it ot the appropiate charities.
I always thought that this was something worldwide, the organization "food not bombs" and it being so oppressed...amazes me.

Edit: (This was missposted in the peak Oil, coal thread due to me mixing them up).

The level of waste in some places simply amazes me. What are fridges even FOR if not for leftovers (Well, that and to sanitize food, smartasses).
I argue with my parents all time over throwing away used underwear, ragged shoes or clothes that have holes in them, under my logic that we should save it for the next donation drive (along with the rest of our old/small clothes), since "someone could use it".

[Col. Crackpot]

there were days past when the thought of salvation army clothes crossed my mind. I banished the thought and picked up a night job.

[Eulogy]

They have to look out for their potential liability. If somebody eats old food donated by a business and gets sick, you can bet your ass he'll try to sue them.

There was a baker in Warsaw who every day would give unsold bread away to the homeless. He did that for years on end, and then the tax office came in and assraped him, demanding he pay all the tax he owed for the bread he gave away.

He had to close down the bakery and left the country. No business owner now gives food to the homeless, they toss it all away.

That's just evil.

Fuck them. Fuck the incompetent unfeeling government cunts hard with a rusty hacksaw. There is no good reason for such appalling behaviour. He didn't even make money on the bread, for shit's sake!

No good deed goes unpunished, indeed. If I were him, I'd start lobbying to overturn fucktarded laws like that.

[Broomstick]

In the US, the value of such goods donated to charities (and food banks and shelters would certainly qualify) can be deducted from taxes (up to a point).

[J]

There was a baker in Warsaw who every day would give unsold bread away to the homeless. He did that for years on end, and then the tax office came in and assraped him, demanding he pay all the tax he owed for the bread he gave away.

Speaking of bread, one of our local bakeries sells day old bread at a substantial discount from the fresh just out of the oven bread. Whenever my fiancé and I go there, we end up cleaning out all the day old dark rye bread from their shelves. It may be day old bread, but it's still fresher than most of the bread found in our local grocery stores.

[Stormin]

At work in a week I think we throw out about half a Tonne of fresh produce (Cucumbers, Tomatoes and Peppers mostly) because of misshapenness, poor color or simply because it was more than a day between harvest and packaging (understaffed). This doesn't include the stuff that is thrown away because it is simply bad (damaged in some way).


It gets dumped over a cliff into a neighboring property where the owner mixes it around with a tractor and plans to eventually bag and sell it when it has turned into dirt.


At one point a lot was donated to a local soup kitchen but they decided to be dicks, showing up at bad times disrupting work and complaining about quality and such and I think they got into an argument with the owner who eventually told them to fuck off for good. I'm not 100% sure on this part, just what I heard since it was from about a year before I started working there.

[Executor32]

I've never literally dumpster-dived, but I have taken things I've found sitting near the top of or next to the dumpster. It's how I got my reclining chair, loveseat, TV, entertainment center, remote-control tank, and my HandyCam. The "Sale Barn" near one of the rural communities nearby is also a good place to get things. The kind of stuff I'm looking for usually isn't the kind of stuff the usual crowd there is looking for, so I'm usually the only one bidding on what I want. I once got an old Mac 637CD with monitor, keyboard, and printer for a dollar, to give an example.

[Death from the Sea]

My problem with dumpster diving is that dumpsters are filthy, stinky, bacteria havens. I have yet to see or more like smell a dumpster that I would climb in. Dumpsters stink. Think about all the drippings and rainwater mixing and then sitting up for several days in the sun before being emptied. The trash truck just dumps the contents out, they don't clean them. Just think about all the potential bacteria that grows over the years.


I find no problem with salvaging large items left around trash bins, the biggest concern there is what did the previous owner do to it .....?


Of course I am a bit of a germophobe with somethings so maybe it is just me....

[Oni Koneko Damien]

But I'm sure if we saw the kitchens of hotels and restaurants, we'd all weep.

Oh, you would weep. I did a brief stint at Wal-Mart [/shame]. I watched, nightly, as several cartloads of food got tossed into the dumpster. About 50-250 pounds of food a night. And the reasons why? Among other things:

- The cans were dented.
- The cardboard boxes had small rips in them.
- The packaging was slightly defaced.
- There was no room for it at the moment.
- The bakery good were dangerously close to becoming 'day old'.

And if anyone tried to take any of this food, either for themselves, or to donate somewhere else? Write-ups, suspensions and firings. It's one of the main reasons I quit. I simply could not claim I had a soul while continuing to work at a place that did that.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Oh, you would weep. I did a brief stint at Wal-Mart [/shame]. I watched, nightly, as several cartloads of food got tossed into the dumpster. About 50-250 pounds of food a night. And the reasons why? Among other things:

- The cans were dented.

That does end up increasing the odds of unpleasant bacterial growth, so I have heard. This is likely a move to cover their ass.

- The cardboard boxes had small rips in them.

Again, they want to cover their ass and not take the risk of someone eating something that had been contaminated.

- The packaging was slightly defaced.

Depending on what you mean by defaced, it could again be to protect against lawsuits.

- There was no room for it at the moment.

Okay, yeah, if it has nowhere to go they could at least give it to charity or something.

- The bakery good were dangerously close to becoming 'day old'.

And if anyone tried to take any of this food, either for themselves, or to donate somewhere else? Write-ups, suspensions and firings. It's one of the main reasons I quit. I simply could not claim I had a soul while continuing to work at a place that did that.

The bakery thing is a bit of a WTF thing to do. I eat day-old baked goods without a second thought.


That they punished people for taking the stuff that was getting tossed was probably due to a combination of things: Make sure employees didn't cause the product to need to be tossed, make sure there's no conflict over who gets what, and to protect against lawsuits. People seem to be rather sue-happy, so it's far easier to simply take the courses of action you saw at Wal-Mart than it is to end up getting your ass sued. It doesn't mean I like it happening, but it's understandable.