Some people say it is because they cannot turn down a free lunch, others might be doing it tough financially — whatever the reason, hundreds of Australians are fishing through dumpsters, hoping to score their next meal.

Dumpster diving typically involves rummaging through a rubbish heap behind a retailer, with the view to find salvageable food.

To be frugal with her funds, Mandy Hodges has been dumpster diving for the better part of a year.

Mandy Hodges and her son Ethan go dumpster diving about once a week. ( ABC News: Tim Swanston )

She said the sheer amount of food she had found was astounding, often having to give parts of her hauls to other needy families in the area.

"Typically, we can probably find enough for roughly a week," Ms Hodges said.

"Sometimes we'll get enough meat, sometimes we won't — sometimes we might get 10 racks of lamb and by the end of the 10 racks of lamb you're sick of racks of lamb," she said.

"But for people out there that need more food or that want more food or who don't have the income and we're just throwing it away like it's no use to anybody, it's astounding."

She said she had a pretty simple mantra when it came to health and safety.

"If in doubt we just throw it out," she said.

Rifling through a dumpster often involves trespassing on private property. ( ABC News: Tim Swanston )

Cost of living stresses

Studies show the cost of living in many Australian cities is rising much faster compared to the rest of the world.

That, combined with modest wage growth in recent years, paints a dire picture for poorer households in Australia and research by Deloitte Access Economics and RACQ shows many Queensland households "may indeed be experiencing significant cost of living pressures".

Andy Paine and his housemates dumpster dive every few days and said cost could be a big factor for many in the area.

Andy Paine and Francz Dowling find enough food to last a few days. ( ABC News: Tim Swanston )

"Even if you're in insecure housing here, you're paying quite a lot of money for rent and other expenses and things like that, and it is sometimes tough especially to eat healthy," Mr Paine said.

"We get a lot of fruit and veg, a lot of bread, sometimes some cans and bottles of things.

"There's a lot of people in my household and we live almost entirely out of the dumpsters."

Where should the waste go?

Foodbank is Australia's largest food relief organisation, collecting leftover food from farmers, retailers and all points of the supply chain in between.

Despite Foodbank Queensland's warehouse being the smallest compared to those in other states, it provides food relief to the largest number of people.

Foodbank provides food relief to hundreds of charities. ( ABC News: Tim Swanston )

Their goal is to ease the rampant food insecurity across Queensland and Australia.

Foodbank Queensland chief executive officer Michael Rose said 11 million kilograms of food came through the warehouse last year alone.

"It's surprising how prevalent food insecurity is," Mr Rose said.

"What we find through the research that we've done is that people are skipping meals and even skipping whole days without eating.

"It's quite likely your neighbours and friends are affected by food insecurity, sometimes only once or twice a year but it does happen to many more people than I think the average person realises."

Mr Rose says 11 million kilograms of food came through the warehouse last year alone. ( ABC News: Tim Swanston )

Research by Foodbank shows 65,000 Australians were turned away empty-handed from food relief charities each month because of a lack of resources.

In a pre-budget submission, the organisation has asked for better incentives and funding for transport companies to help get surplus food to families.

Foodbank says transport of food waste needs to be better incentivised. ( ABC News: Tim Swanston )

Foodbank do not condone dumpster diving, due in part to the strict health and safety standards it applies to the produce it receives before handing it out, but it acknowledged it as a problem.

"If [people] are going for whole days without eating you get pretty desperate and you'll do some fairly desperate things," Mr Rose said.

"What that points to is the prevalence of the problem of food insecurity right across the population.

"We need to be doing more to gather in food to make it available to charities to help those people."