They knew what he and Samuel Troyer, his brother-in-law, were up to at night. The men from Lebanon and Palmyra would leave just before stores closed at 10 p.m. and spend the next four to six hours rifling through their dumpsters. It’s where Moyer said they’d find thousands of dollars in discarded inventory, such as food and candy still sealed in their original packaging.
At first, they’d bring their haul home and share it with their family and friends. When it got to be too much, the two men started donating whatever they had left to charitable organizations around central Pennsylvania.
That is, until they were arrested 10 months later after dumpster diving at a CVS store along Hockersville Road in Hershey.
Moyer and Troyer are now trying to beat the charges with the help of Rob Greenfield. The environmental activist started raising money for a Dumpster Divers Defense Fund through GoFundMe on Nov. 20. It would partly pay for any expenses the two men might have as a result of the charges.
I keep going back and forth on these guys. My first reaction was that it was just two homeless guys, regular old bums who were really into to dumpsters. My suspicion was that they got caught body-deep in some trash, then tried to explain their way out of it by drunkenly saying it was for charity. I was sure of all of this as soon as I read the headline.
Then I saw the two guys. These aren’t homeless guys. These are intellectuals. Intellectuals who want you to know that they’re intellectuals. And I started to think about how many leftover wings there were after we ate at Buffalo Wild Wings yesterday, and I thought, “if all that’s going to charity and not getting wasted, then I’m OK with that.”
But then I read the article. It clearly says that these guys started dumpster diving for themselves. They didn’t jump in thinking it was a charitable endeavor. They just were dumpster diving for their own benefit, and then began to hoard the trash and take more than they needed. I like trash as much as the next guy, but dipping into it every night for months is a little fucking insane. And you know what else is insane? Titling their own video that they made as “The Nicest Guys Ever.” If you have to tell people you’re the nicest guys ever, chances are that you’re not the nicest guys ever. You’re trying to mask something, namely the fact that you are a dumpster addict.