In an endeavor to raise awareness about food waste, 25-year-old Baptiste Dubanchet from Tours, France, is going on a 3,000 kilometre (1864 mile) bike journey from Paris to Warsaw, Poland -- fed only by perfectly good food that has been thrown away by supermarkets and bakeries, or given to him by kind strangers.

 

Dubanchet, an environmentalist with a degree in sustainable development, was inspired to go on this quest by a recent trip to South America, South East Asia, and Tahiti, where the endemic poverty there moved him to further rethink his own habits.

 

Dubanchet ultimately realized that less is more. If we produced less, food would become more precious to us.

 

Dubanchet's project, which he is calling Le Faim du Monde ("the hunger of the world") comes at just the right time, as the European Parliament designated this year as the European Year against Food Waste. Since starting his ride on April 15, Dubanchet has biked through Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Germany, travelling about 60 kilometers (37 miles) per day, and finding accommodations through the hospitality exchange and social networking website Couchsurfing.org.

 

Along the way, Dubanchet has encountered different local attitudes and corporate policies towards giving discarded food; sometimes he finds that companies are strict about not giving away wasted food, as it may affect their bottom line, while other times, people risk their jobs to secretly give him food. Dubanchet said that Berlin, Germany was one of the best places for dumpster diving. But the most difficult place he has found thus far was the town of Pilsen, in the Czech Republic, where he was turned away 50 times before finally being able to eat.

 

Along the way, Dubanchet has made it a point to stop in schools to educate youngsters on how food waste perpetuates social inequality and negatively affects the environment and their future.