Dented cans, ugly fruit – it’s all tasty (and free) if you’re willing to get your hands dirty
Dumpster diving is a practice as old as, well, dumpsters (or waste containers) are themselves. But a confluence of factors over the past several decades – including income inequality, wasteful food systems, and environmental and anti-consumerist movements – has given rise to an emerging subculture built around making use of what wealthy societies deem disposable. The short documentary Spoils: Extraordinary Harvest (2012) profiles three groups, each with their own philosophies and motivations, converging on the grocery story Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn to mine for imperfect but still-very-much-edible foods that would otherwise be bound for landfill. With its cast of eccentric characters, the US director Alex Mallis’s film succeeds as both an entertaining study of a subculture and an invitation to reflect on food waste as a matter of economic, environmental and social justice.
Director: Alex Mallis

videoTravel
Retracing Mark Twain’s path, a filmmaker sets out to understand the mighty Mississippi
28 minutes

videoChildhood and adolescence
A neglected Dominican sugar town, as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old local
11 minutes

videoThinkers and theories
The prison abolitionist who dares to envision a world without ‘unfreedoms’
16 minutes

videoEconomics
A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey
13 minutes

videoSocial psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes

videoFairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
10 minutes