some places completely destroyed the food in the bins by pouring paint all over it so nobody could have it. One place even put bleach on the stuff which I just thought was so sick.
This really bothers me...it's bad enough you're throwing it all out, why exert extra effort to poison homeless/freegan people?
There are certain stores that do have programs set up with local food banks though. I work at Starbucks and all our bakery items that get "marked out" go into a bin and are picked up at least twice a week by the local food bank. As far as I know, these items get distributed right away so as not to spoil and so that there aren't any problems trying to store them somewhere.
Stores don't want to pay for the extra people they would need to take care of it, plus the space required to store it.
Also most food banks etc are purely volunteer based and they don't always have the people to come and pick it up regularly so the stores would be stuck with it.
It's mainly a logistics thing on top of the health regulations. Until someone can think of a workable program it's always going to be this way.
Last edited by electrongirl; 06-19-2012 at 11:37 AM.
My friend worked for a grocery store for a while and she decided to take things home because she felt terrible throwing perfectly good food away and, hey, it would save her some money too.
When she tried, she was warned that she could be fired for "stealing!"
So it's stealing to take something that is going to be discarded anyway?
Being in construction, I have, on several occasions worked remodeling in the deli and bakery areas of the grocery store during open and closed hours. When food, like the chicken, has reached it's maximum time for selling to the public the ladies will come and ask myself or my guys if we want any of it before it's tossed.
We have talked about it with some of them on the waste and they have said it's just a liability issue. You just can't have a bunch of homeless hanging around the store...
scares customers away, risk of someone getting hurt by delivery trucks, etc.
Sad really....
as well as all the food never given to the people by their governments that the USA and Canada ship over...
we live in a world where people are sue happy and in a world where having food means having power over people...
EZMoney, I heard its a liability issue as well, which might be why they also don't send the food to a homeless shelter or something, but instead they dump and spray the food.
