The Adlington Post

On Sunday 31 March the Sunday Star Times here in Auckland published an article on the tremendous waste of perfectly good food worldwide - and included an interview with myself: photo by Lawrence Smith/FairfaxNZ Diary of a Well-fed Freegan 0ne man's Waste is another’s dinner, and it’s not just about dumpster diving, writes Shabnam Dastgheib. AFTER SEVEN years of not paying for food, tools or art supplies, 63-year-old Martin Adlington has freeganism down to a fine art. He finds wine, biscuits, eggs, cheese, and bread and dips in a typical haul from a typical dive in a typical supermarket dumpster. He goes only when he feels like it and often finds enough to donate to large, hungry families in Auckland. This month, World Bank senior economist Jose Cuesta targeted retailers and consumers to find a solution to the world’s staggering food waste. A United Nations- backed campaign Think Eat Save estimates that in industrialized nations 300 million tonnes of food fit for consumption i...

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:

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....