Seattle

Thanks to Seattle freegans for these tips. If you know more, please send ’em on to ask@freegan.info.

Trader Joe’s
University district location
4555 Roosevelt Way NE
The best time to hit this dumpster is between 10:30 and 11:30. I’ve spoken with an employee and he says they generally take the garbage out around 10:30 or 11. They often leave out food they consider to be salvageable behind the dumpster. The dumpster is located to the left of the parking garage, to the right of a gym. Recent finds have included several pounds of zucchini, a package of artichokes, a case of Hansen’s natural soda, etc.

Essential Baking Company
1604 N. 34th St.
March 2010 update: we got a tip that this company has moved their baking operations to Georgetown, so the 34th Street dumpsters are no longer there. Anyone who has checked on the dumpsters at their new location, please let us know!

Pioneer Organics
8 S. Idaho Street
The new address came from a worker at the store in summer of ’07. A comment from NWDumpsterDivers : “Pioneer Organics always has fairly full dumpsters though you may have to dig through some boxes. Put them back nicely! Good almost any time of week.”

City People’s
2939 E Madison St.
“You can find all kinds of good plants at this nursery. It’s a high end nursery in madison valley,
so they end up tossing some really nice plants. Really, I have a full herb garden from here!
The neighborhood is pretty quiet, so don’t park in the lot or make too much noise so we can all enjoy! Pretty irregular, but when it’s good its really good.”

Produce Market
23rd ave S and Rainer
Piles older produce outside on the west side during the day. Some of the vegies looked to be in fine shape.

Cinerama
2100 4th Ave at Lenora, close to Westlake Mall and Seattle Center
From a worker:  “You can always go inside and ask for some free stuff that I know for a fact are thrown away every day. At around 11:00 every morning and ask if you can have some of the cupcakes they’re getting rid of.  At around midnight you can also come by and ask for whatever popcorn they’re going to throw away and they can put it in a huge trash bag for you (chocolate popcorn, regular popcorn, or mixed). I don’t know if this helps at all, but I do work there and want to help curb the insane amount of waste that occurs there daily. The staff would be more than happy to help these items not go to waste. I’m glad it will be used as a resource!”

Free Food Markets
There are Saturday and Sunday free markets stocked with supermarket and coop “leftovers”, that would otherwise be thrown away. Amazing initiative from Seattle Food Not Bombs and others. See their page for more info.

City Fruit
No, this isn’t dumpstering but check it out anyway. City Fruit works to be sure that fruit that would otherwise drop to the ground and spoil gets harvested, and the trees get some love as well. They’ve also put together a fruit tree map that you can add to. As they say, don’t pick fruit without asking.