WWSFF 2009: Surfing The Waste: A Musical Doc About Dumpster Diving
Posted June 17, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
We’re wasters. There’s no denying it. We buy things, get bored of them and kick ’em to the curb. Our dumps and landfills are overflowing, and every day we collectively toss out tonnes of perfectly edible food.
But one person’s trash is another’s treasure, and some have learned to subsist on society’s excesses.
They’re called dumpster divers, and they’re the main characters in producer Paul Aflalo’s short film, ‘Surfing The Waste: A Musical Documentary About Dumpster Diving.’
The film follows a group of communal living young adults who comb Montreal ‘s back alleys in search of discarded fruits and vegetables, which they proceed to cook up and consume on a regular basis.
Aflalo, who admits to being initially squeamish about the prospect of plucking dinner from a dumpster, has partaken in several dives since starting the project.
“I’d never done it before until we started working on the project together,” he notes. “You do come across some really disgusting stuff, at the same time you come across some stuff that is perfectly fine, but just might not be sellable in any way or it just comes to the end of the day at the market and they need to get rid of it because it’s going to be expired.”
The experience was an eye-opener and Aflalo soon realized just how much was good food was being tossed aside.
“I think there are a lot of people becoming more and more aware of it, but when it comes to the general consumer and the average person, I don’t think they realize how much has gone to waste, and they might not even realize how much they throw out on a daily basis.”
He also maintains that some strict safety rules must be adhered to.
“Don’t take something that looks like it will be terrible to eat,” he advises. “Anything you find you have to clean, whether it’s a vegetable or a fruit of whatever it is…meat you try to avoid because you have to be careful. A lot of the people who are within this culture tend to be vegan or vegetarian anyways so the meat side of things they don’t tend to touch. If it’s covered in maggots you don’t want to eat it.”
The film, which clocks in at 17 minutes, extols the virtues of living a life void of needless waste, where participants share expenses, and meals, in search of a simpler, less harmful, and more meaningful way of life. That message is conveyed through light-hearted song and dance that doesn’t come across as preachy.
Aflalo maintains that not everyone has to take things to the extreme of dumpster diving, but we can all play a role in making the world a less wasteful place.
“I think what you can learn from dumpster divers is be a little more aware of what you are throwing out and what you waste. I would love to see more people dumpster dive, but as was said in the film, if everyone was dumpster diving there wouldn’t be this culture, it wouldn’t exist because there would be nothing to take, but I wish people would be a lot more aware of what they are throwing out, what can be recycled and what can be reused.”
The WorldWide Short Film Festival runs from June 16-21. To purchase tickets or learn more about the fest, click here.
