Dumpster Diving, Dump Raiding and Other Acquisitions From Discarded Products

[Optimist]

I guess I'm kind of like my maternal grandfather- the family joke was that he always came back from the dump with more than he took there. Grumpy Old Man quote.

He speaks for me as well. I am a scrounger. I dive dumpsters, I go to the dump and come home with more metal that goes into the welding pile, I ask people who are moving if their dump pile can become my asset midden. The local scrap yard calls me when they get in certain specific kinds of item. I got a bad case of it. How many of you are in the same boat?

[ravensgrove]

For years when my husband was junior enlisted we furnished our entire house with things we got off the corner when it was post garbage day. On most military installations you can put anything out to include appliances and furniture.

[Optimist]

The good pickin's, when I lived and worked in college towns, was the week the semester ended. You'd be amazed some of the things that those kids dumped.

[Daybreak]

I drove a trash truck for a while years ago. You wouldn't believe the things people throw away. I made almost as much selling the stuff people threw away as i did in salary. For those that remember the Charles Chips cans, I picked up one of those full of pennies, $115 :) Bicycles, weight sets, tools, household goods, all kinds of stuff.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Waste not, Want not! I have recently doubled my staff here at the plant and consequently coffee consumption has skyrocketed. The guys save the cans for me and I use them in various ways. One is for storing small quantities of LTS foods. Also good for fasteners (nails, screws, bolts washers). Now I'm getting 2 cans a week. Will I tell them to stop saving them? Heck No! I can make hobo stoves from the metal cans and store staples in the plastic ones.

I have a matched cannister set that is red and says Folgers! And garage sales are good for tools, mismatched screws, nails etc. Think of it as pre-SHTF salvaging!

[LUNCHBOX]

I also look out for nails/screws, tools and whatever I think could come in handy at garage sales. You never know what will be there.

[ak474u]

I live in a fancy-pants apartment complex, and we have a trash chute room on each floor, this year I have found a light maple bent plywood stool that perfectly matches my furniture that just needed some steel wool to clean it up, and a perfect condition 19" Gateway flat screen HD ready Monitor... The monitor was on a really dusty desk that somebody just wheeled over to the trash room and abandoned. the desk was pretty gross, but it had those really long allen head screws holding it together, so I got my tools and salvaged the screws out of it for other uses. I bought 12" of french cleat, and took off the monitor's stand, drilled holes in the cleat, and mounted that bad boy on the wall of my built-in computer desk. I sold my old 15" monitor for my desktop for $40 and came out ahead. The other day, I saw some "art" that someone had left in there, I didn't take it because it was pretty tired. We have trash service that picks up trash for us at the door, but I hit the trash room every day just to check it out for goodies. Now if I could get someone to leave me some ammo cans, or maybe a dusty, out-of-style AR-15 or something, I'd be good. I also have picked up things from customers that are getting rid of stuff in the past. I'm trying to get a customer to sell me a complete AR lower right now, he got it for the 458 SOCOM upper, and doesn't want it, maybe he'll trow it away.

[The Stig]

Mrs Stig is pretty good at this as well. Our dining room chairs were salvaged from an Outback that went out of business. Our old kitchen table came off the curb near a major university. Her nightstand was reclaimed as well.

It's amazing what people throw away.

When I went to university it always amazed me what stuff people threw away instead of moving back home at the end of the year. Picking through the dumpster then was usually good for some interesting finds.