Diving into shadow places: dumpster diving, food waste, and care

Food waste is increasingly understood as a problem – headline-snatching estimates suggest that nearly a fifth of today’s food is discarded at the consumption end of the food system. Building on recent research that complicates the narrative of a ‘food waste problem’, this paper investigates the experiences of dumpster divers in Naarm/Melbourne (Australia). Like other shadow places, dumpster places are neglected, hidden away, and meant to be forgotten; however, divers demonstrate a ‘living with’ food waste as part of urban life. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and collaborative zine-making, we detail how divers engage with ‘waste’ in, around, and beyond the bin. Dumpster diving involves developing situated, embodied knowledge of the messy, risky areas where urban food is discarded and recovered. Insights into the material and immaterial aspects of dumpster diving underlie a proposed typology of dumpster places. Moving beyond the dumpster, we highlight how dumpster divers share outrage at the conditions giving rise to their dumpster diving while also creating caring relations through food salvage. By attending to dumpster places and on-flows as worthy of care, divers defy the marginalization of shadow places and offer sensitizing and caring strategies for a world knee-deep in waste.