Skipping

U.K. Dumpster Diver Will Stand Trial for Taking Tomatoes and Mushrooms

There's good stuff in here.
There’s good stuff in here. Photo: Emily Fleischaker/BuzzFeed

Freelance web designer Paul May, who was arrested with two chums last October for climbing a wall behind a local Iceland supermarket and taking discarded cheese, mushrooms, and tomatoes, will stand trial next month for the so-called burglary. May, who practices “skipping,” or Dumpster diving, was held in jail for nineteen hours, and explained in his own defense that he was hungry and the food had been discarded. The court case comes at a time when food security has become a significant issue in the U.K., and elsewhere, entrepreneurs are seeking to turn expired goods and food bound for trash bins into high-profile for-profit and nonprofit businesses. For its part, the Crown Prosecution Service, which invoked an obscure passage from the 1824 Vagrancy Act — this is not a joke — to charge the men, claims there is a “significant public interest in prosecuting these three individuals.” [Guardian, Related]

U.K. Dumpster Diver Will Stand Trial for Taking Tomatoes and Mushrooms