On a 1 dumpster budget, Norwegian NGO Future In Our Hands managed to make The Norwegian Parliament legislate a new food waste law for the first time.

By letting people experience Norways growing food waste problem legally for the first time, the Dumpster generated massive attention, and opened peoples eyes to the real problem.

QR codes inside of the dumpster and "Deli employees" let people sign our petition for a new food waste law on the spot.

Future In Our Hands is a Norwegian NGO that works to reduce food waste, by aiming to update the law to meet the modern sustainable European standard.

The Norwegian grocery stores were throwing away enough food to feed 1/3 of the country's population, and FIOH lacked the public support they needed to get the Norwegian Parliaments attention.

We expanded the dumpster diving subculture into a full-fledged Norwegian culture, with a law work-around that made it legal to experience it.

By opening the world's first grocery chain filled with food waste, we could invite the whole country to dumpster dive without risking 3 years in jail - since picking up expired food from a dumpster is only illegal if it's a dumpster.

PRIMARY GOAL:

Get the new food waste law into parliament.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Politicians and decision makers in the parliament.

APPROACH:

To get the attention of politicians and decision makers, we needed to make a cultural movement among the general public (not just enviromental activists).

Not an easy feat, with a general population sick and tired of hearing about food waste from depressing environmental campaigns for years. It was time to break completely with our category: and do something fun.

In addition, many people still thought the "expired food" in question might have been "thrown away for a good reason". They needed to see it, feel it, or even better; taste it.

The Dumpster Deli's were placed outside big grocery stores, providing a super visible placement while pulling people in to taste our trash in a hungry situation.

We started with one dumpster, and after massive amount of requests to get the Dumpster to more cities more dumpsters are now in production.

The initial Dumpster had minimum 30 placements within the first few weeks, promoted through a location finder in a pinned story on Future In Our Hands instagram account

The first Dumpster Deli covered all the major Norwegian news channels from TV as well as Newspapers within 24 hours, generating 4M+ in earned media and reaching 23% of the total population.

But most importantly: We reached our primary goal of making The Norwegian Parliament invite Future In Our Hands to legislate their suggestion for a new food waste law. It's being negotiated in the Parliament as we're writing this (!)

- The new food waste law made it it to parliament

- 4.1M+ in earned media

- 23% of total population reached organically

Overall budget, first dumpster: $3620

Dumpster: $600

Sign: $1400

Interior architecture: $1500

Delicious trash shoot:

Silk background (re-used fabric): $100

Cutlery: used or donated, $20

Food: dumpstered, $0

After this more dumpsters have been produced, but the first one sparked the attention needed to reach our goal.