ASH CANS REVEAL WANTON WASTE OF FOOD IN MANY DUNEDIN HOMES

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 October 1947, Page 4

ASH CANS REVEAL WANTON WASTE OF FOOD IN MANY DUNEDIN HOMES

[SPECIAL TO STAR] DUNEDIN, This Day. The people of Dunedin not only h ave enough to eat—they have plenty to throw away. This view comes from the best of authorities, the City Corporation men who, in the course of their rounds clearing the ash cans, have to collect and carry to the refuse dumps amazingly large quantities of discarded foodstuffs. . , , Their list of the surplus or tainted foods that are consigned to the ash cans of Dunedin is an ample one. Bread predominates. T is is thrown out, presumably because it has gone, stale, not in scraps alone but as whole or half-loaves which have not been cut. Wellgrown vegetables of all sorts, which have become wilted or decomposed, are collected m quantity. Besides a considerable amount of cooked meats, which could have served for another meal in more parsimonious—or more hungry—lands, the ashmen collect pounds oi uncooked sausages, rather past their prime, strings of rejected saveloys, and even entire joints of. raw roasting beef. Fish is generally regarded as scarce and dear, but the ash collector’s haul frequently includes substantial quantities. “Yesterday,” a collector said, 'there_was a full pound of butter in an ash can in Tennyson street. Today I saw three stale meat pies and six cakes in. an ash can in the Heriot row area. They throw out sugar, too; I’ve found as much as eight pounds at a time — it’s put in the container because it’s gone hard, but it would still be good if they took the trouble to crush it' out again.” The refuse containers at the corners of the city streets also yield stores of abandoned food. “It’s mostly cakes and sandwiches,” a collector said. “I suppose the left-overs from the shop and office workers’ lunch. You’d think they’d at least give it to the sparrows.” “You’d be surprised,” his mate remarked. “You wouldn’t Jhink there was rationing- or any shortages in Dunedin—certainly not that there are people in other places in the world with empty stomachs.”