Freeganism

Tonight we were walking with a friend in the city centre, and as we were crossing Astoria we saw a man putting two packages of pizza on the small trash bins in the underground crossing. In each package you could find 7 huge pieces of vegetarian pizza. We took one package and went to Blaha square to give the pizza to the homeless. We found exact number of homeless that corresponded to the number of pizza pieces left – 6 (OK, I was hungry and ate 1 piece on the way to Blaha).

Usually, Thursdays and Sundays are the days when you can find trash bins put out in the street all around Budapest. Therefore, we decided to go for a dumpster diving tour in presumably reach areas of Pest – the Jewish district and a couple of touristic streets next to the Danube.

This Sunday was not as successful as the previous one, but we still managed to find 3 big bags of stuff. First, we were walking in Kiraly St. where the most of what we have found were some pieces of bread, loads of pens and some toys. Then, as we moved closer to the Danube, we found some non-edible stuff, like an umbrella (it was in a good shape and exactly perfect for the moment, as it was raining slightly), 6 mint plants, flower pots, a pot for cooking, some decorative chocolate and a couple of books. When we came back to the Jewish district, we passed the grosser y shop in Dohany St. (we were there last week at 6a.m.). Today, the trash bins of the shop were not really full, so we found just some cabbage and grapes. Maybe it was too early, as it was just 4-30. But we found an old chocolate cake and expired packed cheese and sausages supposedly from a freezer.

It was not much, as I was not sleep yet, so I decided to make a short morning tour on bike before the trash collecting cars would take away the possible treasure. First, I went to Match supermarket in the big avenue, and the trash bins were outside, and the stuff I found there was not really edible, as one trash bin and the half of another one were just full of very old stone-like brad. Luckily, the other half of the second trash-bin contained some packaged toast bread, paprika, and loads of carrots. So, I took them. Then I decided to check a couple of Spar supermarkets close to Petöfi bridge, but there was no trash outside, maybe it was too late for it. After this I found some trash bins next to CBA supermarket, but unfortunately, the stuff was outside, and they just took the trash inside the supermarket right before my nose. Then I went to the hotel where there is usually some interesting trash. On my way I stopped in Almassy sq. to pick up 5 sports bags, tennis balls and a rocket, as well as some jackets and bread sticking out of the trash bins. I managed to get the stuff out right before the trash car came.

As it was quite late morning already, I decided to finish with dumpster diving, but at the same time there was some buzz sitting in me telling me to go to the big food market in Fővam sq. My intuition and also rational thinking based on good memories about dumpster diving in Barcelona on Monday morning worked out well. Just in 3 trash bins I found such big amount of food, I did not even imagine how I would carry. Fortunately, I have found a nice big box where I put everything what I have found and managed to bring it to the BASE. So, in the morning I fished out several kilos of banana, 5 kohlrabis, 8 eggplants, some broccoli, zucchini and a huge half-kilo red apple. Nice! I was also very glad that there were other dumpster divers at the market, they seem to know the right time! 🙂 These were mostly older people who seem to live just on their pension.

On Sundays people in Budapest put out their trash bins in front of their houses. On such a night one can find kilos of treasure!!!

After the action at Blaha square during the evening of the 1st of December we went to check another place near Bakats square. We did not find anyone there, but a small group of people discussing something. But we have discovererd trash of Spar in Raday u. and we also dumpstered some pop-corn from Corvinus cinema, yoo-hoo!

Spar trash:

Now the food storage in the BASE looks like this:

My artist friends have a creative approach to trash. As there is a tradition in Catholic and Protestant societies of having an Advent calendar for whole December, my friends decided to make on from trash. You can see the result >>HERE.

Where can one go dumpster diving on Monday around 5p.m.? Right, try going to a market. Right before closing time. First, we were thinking of going to the central big market, but then we thought that it was too late, so, we just went to Rakoci market which is closer to the BASE. There is no trash at the market itself, so we had to go to the ‘secret’ place that is sometimes open and where you can find some trash. There was almost no edible trash there, but still in one of the huge trash bins we discovered loads of reddish with rotten leaves. So, I had to literally dive into it as the reddish was at the very bottom of the bin. This was not enough, so we decided to check another market nearby – the Hunyadi square market.

On the way there we have discovered a very interesting source of trash – a trash bin of a hotel standing at the parking space. There we dumpstered quite a lot of hotel soap, shampoo, slippers, eye cover for sleeping, as well as some food. My favourite object was a ginger bread heart from Oktoberfest in Munich.As we got to Hunyadi market, the first thing we did was going to the ‘secret’ place with the trash from the market, and there we discovered some fruit and tomatoes. The worker came in after 1 minute, but he was patient enough to wait for us to finish dumpster diving. So, at the end, we have got two big packages of stuff!