A few nights ago I was waiting for the L train at some ungodly hour of the evening. I was one of maybe 3 people on the bitterly cold platform in Manhattan when an unsuspecting man walked over to my vicinity and took a seat on the bench on the opposite end of where I was seated. I watched as he pulled a sandwich out of his bag. He wore work boots, a heavy looking jacket, and the fatigue-ridden face of someone who is overworked and underpaid. Then he did what the NYC subway system is notorious for: spoke to the nearest stranger, which just so happened to be me. I almost expected him to be the typical crazy person muttering nonsense, but for some reason the sincerity in his eyes compelled me to actually remove one side of my Beats by Dre earbuds to hear what he was saying.
I told someone recently that when asked for my phone number, it’s rare I’ll ever decline. Why? Because of moments like this. You never know when you can learn something from someone, and the conversation that ensued was enlightening.
After a few seconds of small talk, he pointed down the platform to a man that was hauling in garbage bags from outside. I had completely overlooked the guy, as there was an MTA worker emptying trash cans in the station simultaneously, and I figured he was doing the same. But as I looked closer, I realized the guy this talkative stranger had pointed out wasn’t clad in an MTA uniform. The man near me proceeded to explain how the bags he was hauling actually contained food. Food, in fact, that he had just acquired from the dumpsters outside of Trader Joe’s. He went into a long-winded rant about the wastefulness of our country, a rant we are all too familiar with, and then explained this guy’s grind. As I already know, there are sell-by dates printed on all perishable food items in a grocery store. They’re very different than expiration dates, but if the store doesn’t sell them by that time, then they get taken off the shelves. And in this case, put into a dumpster. Those on the NYC streets who are hungry know just when to hit the dumpster to find the food that was just placed inside. And in NYC in winter, it’s like a refrigerator outside anyway, so it’s not like the food is going bad. It’s still sealed and in bags, and is perfectly good food. The guy must have had about $600 worth of food, and must be a regular in the area, because the friendly gentleman I was speaking to then explained that he will haul all of the bags onto the train, take them back to his neighborhood, and feed others on his block who don’t have anything to eat. It was a strange thing to watch – a man doing something as demeaning as digging through a dumpster for food, yet with a result so commendable.
As the man continued to make multiple trips up and down the stairs of the station in preparation to get his entire haul onto the train when it reached the platform, my bench neighbor then told me something I didn’t know. He asked me why, of all places, this guy kept coming back to Trader Joe’s? I thought maybe it was the fact that they have very nutritious food that’s worth a lot of money. But it turns out other grocery chains in the city have started pouring bleach on their discarded food to discourage the homeless population from foraging for dinner in their trash cans. It was so startling that I went home and googled the phenomenon, only to discover articles from BBC and the like about the practice overseas. I suppose it has now landed stateside.
Why, when people are dying of starvation worldwide, would people purposely contaminate perfectly good food? Why trash it in the first place? Why not donate unsold goods from grocery stores to homeless shelters? It’s a known fact that the expiration date differs from the sell-by date. And really, a jug of orange juice one day past its expiration is most likely still safe to drink.
I told my momentary acquaintance that I felt like I should help the guy carry his stuff. But he said, “He doesn’t want your help. In fact it would be insulting. For him, there is pride in this act. There are youngsters that call themselves “dumpster divers.” The dumpster divers don’t give a fuck about society.”
After a brief conversation about the relativity of the terms “poor,” “middle class,” and “wealthy” when applied to developed versus developing countries, the train finally arrived. The man, who at this point reminded me of a mix of Dallas Penn and Ernie Paniccioli, quickly stopped speaking, wrapped up the remainder of his sandwich, said goodbye, and entered into a separate car of the train than myself. I wish I could have at least asked him his name.
