Wollongong dumpster divers busier than ever as city hits hard times

That's the slogan of a new mutual-aid service that has sprung up in Wollongong, and in the nine months since it formed, the demand is stronger than ever.

Named Food not Bombs Wollongong, the service began as a group of dumpster divers that connected through the anti-war movement, and saw a need across their wider networks for access to food.

Volunteer Zach Jones said after forming mid last year, the cost-of-living crisis and increased pressure on young people spurred the group to go public over summer.

"Summer is so hard for unemployed people, especially young people, at Christmas, if you don't have families, a lot of people just feel really isolated," Zach said, who is unemployed themselves.

Since then, the group has run a stall offering warm vegan meals and essentials biweekly on Sundays at MacCabe Park and more recently has set up a free pantry opposite Coniston train station.

Initially utilising the haul from discarded items from Woolworths and Aldi, the supermarkets have since locked their bins, making discarded items harder to access. Instead, the group has turned to donations from a growing volunteer base and those that have the space to grow their own.

The growth of the organisation comes as Wollongong and the Illawarra record rising unemployment levels, including a shock 8.7 per cent result in January.

While the region had had historically low levels of unemployment as the country emerged from the pandemic, the successive interest rate rises and cost of living crunch has led residents to alternative forms of sustaining themselves.

"House prices have been so high and the rent really did jump for a lot of people during the summer period, but I think it's price gouging as well from the supermarkets," Zach said.

The cost of petrol in the car-dependent southern suburbs added to the pain.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, non-discretionary spending grew 5.6 per cent in the year to January, showing the increase in the cost of items such as groceries, fuel and health expenses as stretching household budgets.

"Compared to January 2023, households are spending more on transport, food and health," Robert Ewing, ABS head of business statistics said.

Rather than turning to charities, as the slogan suggests, Food not Bombs members, some of whom are unemployed, sought to create a mutual aid society, drawing on other Food not Bombs chapters internationally, as well as local predecessors such as the Wollongong Out of Workers Union, which formed during the downturn of the 1980s and continued throughout the decade of the steel crisis.

"It's not an act of someone giving away some bread crumbs because they feel sorry, it's building this community that can address the issues we're facing, especially unemployed people," Zach said.

The group's next stall is on March 17 at MacCabe Park.