A man has made it his mission to expose the thousands of pounds wasted by retail outlets by dumpster diving - and found up to £100,000 worth of gear in a single haul. Martyn, 47, who goes by 'Retail Waste Exposed' on YouTube, is a full-time dumpster diver, which means he searches waste bins of retail stores for items.
He began dumpster diving in support his family as a child and has now made it his full time occupation. Martyn has one main goal, to expose the huge amounts of retail waste.
He said: "It's an incredible amount of money. I grew up in a struggling family when I was a child, one day I found food in a Tesco dumpster and it all started there."
His biggest hauls have included £30,000 of beauty products at a distribution center, £100,000 of nail varnish and even iPhones and hard-drives. The £100,000 of nail varnish came from an enormous haul of 50 boxes with about 300 bottles in each of them.
Martyn, who doesn't want his last name to be revealed, makes between £200 and £1,000 per week from his hauls. He goes out diving on weekends, spending about 12 hours a week on the hunt and spends the rest of the time repairing, selling and donating his items.
Martyn added: "I don't want everyone to think that they can make a living by jumping into dumpsters. I've been doing this for years."
But Martyn is disappointed to see so much waste given the current cost of living and climate crisis. He said: added: "It's criminal what they're doing.
"I only search general waste bins, everything that isn't recyclable should go there, stuff like cardboard and plastic should be recycled. I see that stuff all the time. The worst for recycling is Smyth's Toys. They throw away an incredible amount of stuff.
"The best places are the ones I get the least from, places like Curry's, Homebase, and Argos. I'd like the shops to do better. We're all forced to do so much for the environment and blamed, but on a commercial level they waste so much.
"I found a hundred thousand pounds of nail varnish a few months ago, and that was all sent to a landfill. How dare they."
Martyn donates a large part of what he finds, or gives it away to friends and family as well. He added: "I donate 90% of what I find to charity.
"I like to donate to independent charities, I've been behind a few food banks and they throw away so much stuff."
