Vintage cheese, capsicum dip, sun dried tomatoes and sesame seed crackers - sounds like a wonderful picnic or antipasto dinner party right? Wrong. These are regular items that Nat Kassel finds when dumpster diving for his weekly groceries. Kassel is a first year university student from the north coast of NSW who has turned to freeganism; the practice of reclaiming and eating food that has been discarded, which in basic terms means 'bin food'.

Vintage cheese, capsicum dip, sun dried tomatoes and sesame seed crackers - sounds like a wonderful picnic or antipasto dinner party right?

Wrong.

These are regular items that Nat Kassel finds when dumpster diving for his weekly groceries.

Kassel is a first year university student from the north coast of NSW who has turned to freeganism; the practice of reclaiming and eating food that has been discarded, which in basic terms means 'bin food'.

"The best way that I can explain it, is like modern day hunting and gathering, it's basically the act of going to a supermarket preferably, or catering company or wherever you want to get your food from, finding their bin and rescuing whatever food you can."

The 24 year old isn't trawling dumpsters because he is a poor university student or some peace loving hippie or drug addict, which he had to explain to his mother, he just hates the amount of food wastage that occurs in Australia.

"It's not crucial to be freegan I don't think, it's just important to get whatever you can and waste as little as possible, initially maybe to save money, to get free food and stuff like that, but the deeper you go into it and the longer you start doing it, you realise how much is actually there and how much is going to waste on a daily basis."

Originally from Byron Bay, Kassel has also dumpster dived overseas, and never succumbed to sickness or known anyone else to who has rescued produce amongst the bin juice.

"I've never been sick and I've taken some pretty heavy risks I guess, I've eaten stuff that is loose

I've generally found that something that says it is out of date, it's going to be fine, it's going to be totally edible."

Surprisingly, dumpster diving has converted Kassel from a vegetarian to eating meat.

"I certainly don't believe in supporting the meat industry, but when it's in the dumpster and an animal has been killed and nobody has bought it, I can't see any problem with eating it."

Kassel says it is common for him to gather hauls of food worth up to $700 as supermarkets tend to dispose of food in bulk.

"I found 30 or 40 steaks at a time that didn't go off until midnight that night, and I found them at about 11pm, so checked them, cooked them up and froze the rest."

Kassel has found on his dumpster diving adventures that the wealthier suburbs reflect a better quality of food in their dumpsters.

"People are less likely to buy the food that's been reduced at those places."

And what's the best dumpster meal that he has ever cooked?

"A big rocket salad with heaps of veggies and feta cheese and some smoked salmon... you have just got to get creative with it."

You can follow Nat Kassel's blog on dumpster diving here.