In 2010 journalists from Index.hu decided to make a video about dumpster diving and then cooking the dumpstered vegetables. The dumpster diving took place in the Central Market in Budapest. The journalist and the cameraman were following us while we were fishing for veggies from the market’s dumpsters. The journalist also joined the dumpster diving. After that one person from the group invited the cameraman and the journalist home, where they cooked a nice meal from the dumpstered food.

HERE you can find the article about this in Hungarian.

And HERE you can find the video

After talking about food waste and hunger, I decided to put into practice one of the topics I covered during the presentation, namely dumpster diving in Budapest. As usual, Thursday is a dumpster diving day.

Recently I noticed that a lot more people compared to the previous year go in the streets and dumpster dive. It would be interesting to observe what they search for, as depending on their needs they are searching either for food, or stuff to sell or metal beer cans (to exchange them for money), or to find something interesting (this is what I am doing).

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Today by pure chance I found some magazines on the top of the huge blue container for papers at the bottom of Gazdagret.

As December 25 is Sunday, we decided to go dumpster diving that night. As we did not have much time, we just checked several streets in teh 7th district. We went there around midnight. We found some toys, lamps, clothes and a lot of church candles. Of course, there was a lot of X-mas package in the trash, but we did not take it. Later on, as it got even later at night, or rather Monday morning, we went to Aldi in the 9th district to check the trash there.

We decided to do so as when I was around the supermarket earlier on Sunday I have discovered 5 trash bags full with good bread and pastry that was supposed to expire 2 days later, on Decemebr 28. So, as we came to the supermarket, the bags were still there, and apparently, nobody even discovered their existance, although I saw several dumpster divers in that area before. So, we took the bread to the Club, as well as 1 trash bag full of bread with us to make “guerilla breading”. We just left the bread on the ram and bus stops in the 9th and the 8th districts. We were doubting how much time it would take for the bread to be taken from the stops. On the first tram stop where we left the bread, it disappeared in less than 5 minutes. While we were waiting for the tram, we were observing the people collecting the bread.
This was the first time we find ANYTHING in this supermarket.

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: