BERLIN: Just past midnight behind a Berlin supermarket, two youngsters with torches strapped to their woollen hats sift through rubbish bins for food that is still edible, load their bikes with bread, vegetables and chocolate Santas and cycle off into the darkness. It is not poverty that inspires a growing number of young Germans like 21-year-old student Benjamin Schmitt to forage for food in the garbage, but anger at loss and waste which the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates at one-third of all food produced worldwide, every year, valued at about $ 1 trillion. In environmentally aware, cost-conscious Germany, “foodsharing” is the latest fad, using the Internet to share food recovered from supermarket bins while it is still in good condition. “Dumpster-diving” for society’s cast-offs is a fast-growing phenomenon among sub-cultures in Europe and the United States and “freegans” — vegans who do not believe in paying for food — have long been sifting through supermarket wheelie bins. But the “foodsharing” movement that has sprung up in cities like Cologne and Berlin brings efficiency and technical skills to the table in ways that make it uniquely German.
German bin-divers get connected to wage war on food waste
