30-year-old Sophie Jewell-Anderson began digging through dumpsters in October 2020 while living in Sydney, Australia, and since then, she has completely stopped going to grocery stores. This is reported by The Sun.
"I haven't been to a grocery store in four years," Sophie, a restaurant manager, shared.
While living in Sydney, she decided to peek into a dumpster that turned out to be full of wonderful, still edible food, and that’s when she realized she no longer needed to shop.
After returning to Denmark in 2022, Sophie continued her dumpster diving and even got her entire family involved—her parents, siblings, cousins, and grandparents.
Now, she only purchases hygiene products in supermarkets, and throughout 2024, she has spent approximately $98. With the hundreds and thousands she has saved, she travels the world and has visited Kenya, Argentina, Italy, Spain, and Dubai over the past four years. Notably, during her travels, she also doesn’t buy food.
Among her finds are loaves of bread, rolls, flatbreads, and pastries. She regularly discovers oranges, tomatoes, pears, green onions, cabbage, lettuce, peppers, spinach, bananas, broccoli, carrots, grapes, melons, and potatoes.
In addition to fruits and vegetables, her haul includes meat in various forms: meat patties, vegan patties, bacon, chicken sausages, and chili con carne.
She has also managed to find jam, cookies, pastries, mozzarella cheese, oat milk, waffles, and chocolate. Once, she even stumbled upon a dumpster full of bouquets of flowers.
Sophie stated that her dumpster diving has evolved from a search for sustenance into "everyday activism." By her example, she raises awareness about food waste issues and changes attitudes toward such products.
As a reminder, a customer at a café in Australia was left stunned when they received a bill for $50 for two sandwiches and coffee.