The Adlington Post

Perfectly edible food thrown into landfill..... I finally got around to editing some of the video I took last year. This short piece shows a tiny fraction of the waste from one supermarket otherwise headed for landfill in one day..... https://youtu.be/HUbbqAcYx1s

Last evening on my way home from my (chilly!) afternoon walk, I checked out the trash behind the Hospice shop - and came away with a bottle of beer (!?) and a miniature Monopoly set - the houses and counters will make great earrings....

A recent dumpster dive netted a 350grm tub of (still chilled) chicken livers. A while ago while trash trawling I found a well-used copy of Leah W. Leonard's 1951 book of "Jewish Cookery" - on p. 301 is the recipie for molded chicken liver ( a firm favourite with my Jewish friends): "Combine broiled chicken livers, hard cooked eggs and greben. Run through food chopper, season to taste with salt, pepper, celery salt or garlic salt, add chicken or goose fat, or salad oil. Use as a canape spread.Top with tiny bits of pimento or green pepper, minced parsley or water cress, or stuffed olive.
Or press into a well-greased mold. Unmold on shredded greens and garnish." OR on p. 382 Leah gives the recipie for "Chopped Liver and Peanut Butter"!: "Two parts chopped liver to 1 part peanut butter makes a delicious spread".

Looks like bacon'n'eggs for me for the next week or so - I found six packets of bacon & a tray of 24 eggs in the skip last night (gave half to my neighbour). Check out the "best before" date on the middle bacon = 1 May 2014!

As an environmental artist I see a lot of perfectly good materials being disposed of in landfill. Having lived in Fiji and visited several Pacific islands I am aware that much of our waste would be very welcome to our neighbours - particularly after disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes. The remoteness and often poverty of these islands makes recovery from disaster extremely difficult and very expensive. I have previously organised assistance to Bali after the bombing ("Byron Loves Bali" in 2003), and to Niuatoputapu in Tonga after the tsunami (2010). Currently I am continuing to collect tools, knives, nails, and pots and pans for Niua as many of the people have by no means recovered from the damage of the tsunami. See details on my blog http://www.pacificneighbours.blogspot.co.nz/ tsunami damage someone's roof in the lagoon john with donations 2014   distribution of goods from yacht Atutaki in 2010 hammers for niua 2014

Last night was busy down at the skip - I hauled home some $200 worth of groceries, and had to make two trips....most of the packets were before their "buy by" date, and one of the 4 trays of eggs had been dumped because ONE egg was broken! I noticed that someone has taken up after-dark occupation in one of the paper cages nearby - under the eaves and so out of the winter rain...he was munching on a bagel from the skip as I went past....hopefully he  will not draw the attention of the supermarket jocks & lead to them putting a lock on the skip....

Here's last night's find while out dumpsterdiving & trash trawling. A rounded meal, as my friend Laurie says: "Gotcha protein, gotcha carbs, gotcha greens" - & a piece of fruit for desert!

One of the doctor's offices in the Bay is closing, and they have a skip for the trash. I found this compressor last night. It was a bit wet from the rain, so I stood it in front of the electric heater I bought at the market on Sunday for .50c and dried it out. It works perfectly - now I can finally hook-up my airbrush and do some graffiti stencilling.

With winter here the skip at the back of the local supermarket is easier to approach unseen. I picked out these six packets of fetta cheese last night, still cool from the chiller - expiry date tomorrow! Delicious in salads....

Overseas pupils from the local language school dump their old phones etc into the bin. I found this phone today - complete with charger & sim card.

A recent freeganing trip netted a 350grm tub of (still chilled) chicken livers.  A while ago while trash trawling I found a well-used copy of Leah W. Leonard's 1951 book of "Jewish Cookery" on p. 301 is the recipie for molded chicken liver ( a firm favourite with my Jewish friends): "Combine broiled chicken livers,hard cooked eggs and greben. Run through food chopper, season to taste with salt, pepper, celery salt or garlic salt, add chicken or goose fat, or salad oil. Use as a canape spread.Top with tiny bits of pimento or green pepper, minced parsley or water cress, or stuffed olive. Or press into a well-greased mold. Unmold on shredded greens and garnish." OR on p. 382 Leah gives the recipie for "Chopped Liver and Peanut Butter"!: "Two parts chopped liver to 1 part peanut butter makes a delicious spread".

Another three minutes of fame!! The skilled folks from Whitebait TV made a short doco on my dumpster diving and upcycling activities which screened on June 8 2012. Watch by clicking on the image:

Here are some electrical bits'n'pieces I found in the trash the other day. The analogue phone will be handy for use when the power goes out. I will use some of the other bits for upcycled art projects. The rest will go into my scrap-metal box. I get some $30 for a banana box of electrical wiring from the scrap yard - half a tank of diesel for the van!

As told to Paula Trubshaw & photographed by Kristina Rapley - thanks guys for a great job! The amended text reads:  Sneaking under the cover of the fence, I raced across to the Hobsonville Air force base rubbish dump. "Wow, check out this old ammunition box!" I exclaimed, hauling it out of the pile and showing it to my five-year old friends. Growing up close to the base in Auckland in the 1950's we were strictly forbidden to go near the dump - so of course we visited it as often as we could. It was full of the kind of treasures boys of my age dreamed about, and was the start of my lifelong interest in other people's junk. Moving to Wellington when I was 20, I got a job driving a rubbish truck. Within three months I'd outfitted my flat from floor to ceiling with the things other people tossed away: goat-skin rugs, a full set of cast-iron frying pans, and an old-fashioned typewriter were just some of the useful items that I rescued from the trash....

"The motto is reduce, reuse and recycle but nobody's reducing" - martin adlington "Members of a fringe group known as dumpster divers are enjoying fancy meals – for free. On an average evening they can be found knee-deep in supermarket skips collecting food, despite most being able to pay for it off the shelves. Former rubbish truck driver and self-proclaimed professor of garbology Martin Adlington says people like him are dumpster divers out of principle. "On the Shore what is thrown out by supermarkets, veggie shops and restaurants you can live off very well. I've found stuff where the expiry date isn't for another month." One of his most successful yields includes bacon, salami, yoghurt, cream cheese dip and blue vein cheese barely past the use-by date and still cold from the chiller. "If you know the right times and places to go you do pretty well." see the rest of the article, plus some intern...

Last week a reporter from our local North Shore Times came to my home to interview me on matters regarding freganing & dumpster diving. Between 30-40% of the food produced in NZ is wasted at some point on the food chain. The reporter asked me if a family of four could live from the food disposed of in local dumpsters - "easily" I replied - they would probably even thrive on all the fruit & vegetables disposed of because of a slight blemish or (horror!) odd shape.

The week before Xmas a very professional team from Whitebait TV spent the best part of a day with me - doing an interview & filming for a documentary on environmental artists in New Zealand - to be screened on TV sometime early this year. We had fun in the dumpster & on the beach. Hopefully I was able to get my message across: the motto is "reduce, reuse, recycle" - but no-one talks about reducing! I guess the likes of the Warehouse, Harvey Norman etc won't like that message. Too bad. The problem with the current recycling fad is that it to me it makes buying crap OK - as long as you recycle it when you're done. Sorry, but no, it doesn't work that way: Just don't buy crap in the first place. The core of the problem is that most people can't differentiate between their needs & their wants - more on this later. In the meantime, may I suggest viewers read "To Have or to Be" by Erich Fromm - a seminal text on the topic.

I found a dumpster today & dived in! My main finds of interest were: - a film camera ( Agfa Silette) - 2 jandals to make into art - a 1954 copy of "William & the Moon Rocket" by Richmal Crompton (I used to read these as a kid) - a satellite navigation kit for the van - a retro table lamp - a metal strainer to make into a clock - a hand-crocheted blanket See my recycled, upcycled and environmental works at www.martinadlington.webs.co m See my youtube channel for dumpster-diving & recycling videos www.youtube.com/martinadlington www.youtube.com/martinadlington

Last week I began collecting aluminum to cash-in at the scrapyard. I picked up these three cans across the road from my house - all are full! Are these people so out of it that they can't tell a full can from an empty one?...anyhow cheers guys!..... PS I already collect electrical wire, every six months or so I have a banana box full - which nets me $25 at the scrapyard. “Although nearly 66% of Australians say they cannot afford to buy everything they really need, they admit to spending $10.5 billion a year on goods they do not use. That is $1226 for every Australian household - more than the total government spending on universities, pharmacuticals or roads. They threw away more than $5.2B worth of food & drink in 2004. 35% of Australians admit to discarding more than $500 worth of fresh food a year, with 14% throwing away more than $2500 worth." from "Affluenza - when too much is never enough" p103-104  by Clive Hamilton & Richard Dennis  See m...

Today I did a dumpster dive in the industrial estate around the corner, & came away with a few items - notably a 3D "Viewmaster" & a dozen slides for it, all Disney cartoons: Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Micky Mouse, 1953 & 1959. I just them before the rain came down, another 5 minutes & they would have been badly soaked.