YOOUPI opens a dumpster and lets out a jubilant cry as she finds her “treasure of the day.” In a big trash bag, she finds packs of bread that one might argue aren’t in the best shape. “They look very good, but all wasted,” she says into the camera, “you can see the beef inside is still red-colored, the vegetables are fresh, and there is some fine cheese.”

Yooupi, the Chinese vlogger living in Toulouse, France, brings the trash bag — along with almost 3 dozen sandwiches, pizzas, and Panini — home. She transforms her experience of the day into a vlog and posts it online. “I found a whole bag of ham bread in France, which could feed me for a whole week,” she says.

The vlog about her successful dumpster diving expedition was viewed more than 1.5 million times on Chinese streaming site Bilibili in a month. “It looks delicious,” one comment said. “Now I can empathize with the pain of seeing so much food going to waste,” another read.

Yooupi, or Ge Chenchen, who just graduated in France with a master’s degree in art, has been posting dumpster diving vlogs for a year and gained more than 800,000 subscribers on different platforms.

According to statistics from the World Food Program, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally. This amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year, worth approximately US$1 trillion. All the food produced but never consumed would be sufficient to feed 2 billion people. That’s more than twice the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition across the globe.

“For many of my audiences, ‘picking up trash’ is a new concept,” Yooupi said.

Born in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province in the mid-1990s, Yooupi knew nothing about dumpster diving a year ago.

Once when she visited an open market at the weekend, she saw many people, including college students and even office workers, salvaging discarded fruits and vegetables. The shop owners threw the food away because the tomatoes or apples were crushed, or because they were “ugly,” she said. The supermarkets or bakeries would also dump edible foods that were expired according to their “best sell by” dates.

She found this to be an interesting topic and started to learn about it.

She then started to practice dumpster diving.

In a modern industrial society, where food travels a long way before finally reaching the consumer, waste can happen at any point, from the farmers to the packaging workers, from shippers to retailers.

“I made friends with other ‘pickers’ here,” she said. “We usually share information.”

“Some of them are living from hand to mouth, but there are also office workers, and some can even be called wealthy,” she explained.

Yooupi has also met people from charity organizations, who collect discarded yet edible food to help those in need.

“For many young people here, dumpster diving is not shameful,” Yooupi concluded, “On the contrary, it is cool to reduce food waste and aid recycling efforts.”

Some people are skeptical about Yoopi’s efforts, because in China, “picking up trashes” is not a positive description. It may refer to people who live a lowly life.

“I was not ashamed or uncomfortable,” the vlogger said, “explaining it in front of camera was actually easier.”

“For me, it is a process of learning. I research on this topic which has given me a better understanding of the world,” Yooupi said.

“It has brought about changes in my values and global perceptions. For one thing, now I pay more attention to the environment and resource repurposing.”

Her vlogs may also influence others so that they too may change their mentality and lifestyle, which will in turn help reduce the waste on our planet.

(Global Times)