A man in Phoenix, Arizona, has turned a compassionate habit of feeding the homeless into a steady side hustle that brings him 300 dollars a month, Daily Dot reports. The story surfaced on Reddit in the r/WeirdSideHustles community, where the user posted a photo of a cardboard box overflowing with pepperoni and assorted pizza slices.
The header of the post, “Trash pizza paid my bills,” immediately caught the attention of thousands of readers. The poster lives just a few blocks away from Roosevelt Row, a vibrant area in Phoenix. He mentioned that he frequently walked by a local pizza place and noticed a massive amount of food being tossed into the trash every night after closing.
It bothered him to see perfectly good food go to waste, so he started checking the dumpster to see what was still wrapped or untouched. He would gather the food, put it into clean boxes, and spend his time handing it out to people in need throughout the neighborhood. He noted that he kept doing it because he “hated seeing food go to waste.”
It is a wild transition from simple food rescue to a formalized arrangement
Everything changed when the owner of the pizza shop caught him scouring the trash for leftovers. Instead of being upset, the owner was impressed by the effort the man was putting into the community. The owner decided to start paying him 25 dollars for his help, which has now grown into a consistent 300 dollars per month. The staff now sets the leftovers aside for him, meaning he no longer has to hunt through a dumpster to find the food.
Trash Pizza Paid My Bills
by u/HerpesFreeSince96 in WeirdSideHustles
The reaction online was overwhelmingly positive, with the post racking up over 33,000 upvotes. Many people were impressed by how the situation shifted from a random act of charity into an organized effort.
One commenter perfectly captured the sentiment by saying that the poster had “turned dumpster diving into an official paid logistics route while keeping good food out of a landfill.” They called the entire situation an “absolute triple win.” Other users pointed out that it was “Good of that guy to realise [sic] that altruism didn’t take anything away from his business.”
The discussion also veered into how businesses handle food waste on a larger scale. Some users mentioned an app called Too Good To Go, which allows people to purchase “mystery boxes” of edible leftovers from restaurants for about 5 dollars. While that app provides a structured way to reduce waste, the arrangement in Phoenix feels much more personal and community-focused.
When some commenters wondered why the shop didn’t just bake fewer pizzas to avoid the waste in the first place, others explained the economics of the food industry. They noted that, for many shops, “the cost of not having pizza available has been determined to be higher than the cost of making fewer pizzas.”
It is worth noting that these details come directly from the account shared on Reddit. The identities of the poster and the shop owner remain unconfirmed, and it is impossible to independently verify the events.
