It’s late on a Sunday night, I’m informed the best swag is on a Monday but a Sunday seems good rustling too.
I have arranged to meet a group of Glasgow University students (two honours students, two undergrads and myself a Masters graduate) who assembled first on an internet forum, second in a café on nearby hotspot Byres Road, and tonight it’s a pub in the west end of Glasgow where they’re reluctantly paying for a pint or two to settle nerves before the pillaging can start.
Time: 2300 hours. Destination: Marks and Spencer. Mission: to snaffle as much free quality food from the bins as possible before the lights come on and the security dogs rip your hand off; or so I’ve been informed by the disapproving.
In the pub I sit next to forum leader and pirate-in-chief Ella Pawluk, 22, a languages student from Poland. She recruited three other forum members, Stephanie Gibson, 22, Colin Farliegh, 19 and James Clanachan, 22 for this late night plunder.
James explains his own Freegan mantra to me in one breath, it’s somehow invigorating watching this young man appear so passionate about stealing rubbish from bins but I suppose when you reduce anything to it’s LCM it’s easy to make fun.
He said, “These stores are worth millions and they bin their food when it approaches its use-by. Why can’t they use it to give to the homeless or to Africa? We take it because we are poor students and it’s a way to eat good food for nothing. I’m not going to lie; it’s a buzz to think you’re ripping off these stores and in the dead of night, it’s pretty exciting.”
The next few hours are filled with chat about Freeganism, music, films and the night ahead. I’m having a good time and these are cool enough people but I suggest they’re just being a bit cheap when they are in the luxurious position of being rather well-to-do students compared to the kinds of people who could genuinely benefit from a supermarket outreach programme.
Pawluk sparks up a cigarette outside and calmly tells me in perfect English, “why should anyone waste food and why should we pay for out-of-date food that’s perfectly edible. It saves money and we feel we’re doing out bit to cut the world’s food waste bill."
Fair enough.
Time: 0100 hours. Location: outside Marks and Spencers. Status: shitting myself.
Pawluk is fearlessly scoping out any signs of opposing forces in and around the lane. Are the security teams stroking weapons behind the bush? Are there doggers in the car park behind, any shoplifting scum or burgling degenerates around? No just bin raiding students. The coast is clear.
The bins are out in full view of any would-be raiders. Marks and Spencer have issued warnings and threats to Freegans in the past but they were not allowed to put any kind of defence structure on this store in Ashton Lane in Glasgow and any attempt to put vandal paint or wire fencing up would just be met with a lawsuit.
A couple of drunk men walk past as the Freegans hang by the bin waiting for that surge of courage to start the party. The drunk men shout something but Polish Pawluk gives as good as she gets in trademark perfect English.
Time: 0113 (I looked at my watch as the men walked past, still shitting myself.) Location: at the bin behind Marks and Spencer Ashton Lane. Status: watching a slightly built Scottish boy of just 19 years butcher open a wheelie bin with a mallet.
Stealing from the rich to give to the poor (or those claiming to be poor students) is a mantra I can subscribe to but no wonder I was shitting myself when there was criminal damage afoot. I left my hedonism in my other boxers.
Colin is right in there, not giving a Freegan frick about broken glass or sharp packaging but right in there swimming about in a sea of blue dyed cellophane parcels containing out of date foodstuffs.
Chicken fillets, mince, fish, fruit and vegetables chocolate biscuits and notably an apple turnover are loaded, ironically, into bin bags and concealed behind a fence just in case any nearby shadows emerge with a hungry glint in their eye. Or the police, of course.
It’s quite a haul by the end, you name your supermarket isle and yes, there’s an item from it. Even some special offers in there, impressive economy drive from the Freegans.
The fish is not touched and thrown back in, even the vegetarian girls are above eating dodgy bin-fish. The meat is still impeccably parceled the way you’d buy it normally. There’s some blue dye dried into the cellophane but it doesn’t penetrate the wrapping so no one bats an eyelid.
The raid took no longer than five or ten minutes, I suppose time is of the essence.
I wonder about the meat, I mean a bad pear could give you a dippy stomach but some foul meat could ruin you for a few days.
“I’ve eaten this four or five times now, this chicken. It’s fine, I served it to my mum when she came over, she hadn’t a clue” James told me.
Time: 0123. Location: quietly heading to a flat the other side of Glasgow University. Status: disgusted someone could feed their dear old Mum bin-chicken and not tell her. I’d never do that; if you’re reading this Mrs M I think you’re a saint.
Time: 0130. Location: the safety of Pawluk’s flat. Status: drinking vodka with the freegans as they settle their nerves, all except Pawluk, the slight girl with nerves of steal, drinking just for another thrill. I think this girl lives for the rush.
The group are pulling their bin bag heist and divvying it up based on personal taste and equality.
There are biscuits, chocolate biscuits and fruity breakfast bar things going four ways; cereal boxes going four ways and a disproportionate meat divvy goes one way as fruit and veg come back sorting herbivorous girls from carnivorous men. There is more in common with the Neanderthal era at play here than I first thought.
“This is not food, this is M&S food” Stephanie utters through vodka induced laughter. I think that’s quite a good joke.
Colin and James are rolling cigarettes and eating chocolate bars.
“So how does that compare with a normal heist?” I ask.
“Good yeah, not as good as a Monday but not bad, there’s less chance of being caught on a Sunday. Maybe M&S don’t fork out on the time and a half for their Sunday security.” James says.
Colin says nothing; he’s done his bit with aplomb this evening.
Time: 0300. Location: the night bus heading back to what I deem normality. Status: pissed, tired and full up on bin chocolate.
So is Freeganism, a worthy enterprise? Yeah why not: it saves food going to waste and no one really loses out. The bin may be the only thing damaged but if M&S leave the bins open the food would be pinched without the need to batter the lock. It makes sense in my drunken 3am stupor.
Will I be doing it again or starting my own little Freegan cell? Probably not, it’s an awful lot of work and you risk losing your nerve endings and bowel functionality all to save on £20 worth of groceries. Shop at Lidl, it’s near enough the same thing.
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