The picture above is Rob Greenfield and this is a link to his tips on dumpster diving.
Oh if I only still had my truck! Living in our apartment, I see all the things people toss into the dumpster here. Today there was a computer desk and a treadmill by the dumpster. Now the treadmill probably had a problem, but Maybe I could fix it. The exterior was looking good. If I still had the truck I would have a flea market booth or use an auction service to pick up some loose change. I suppose many of the items I see every week are from people who like me do not have room to carry things in their car when they move, so they set them by the dumpster and walk/drive away. There are a dozen apartment complexes within a mile from me and it seems like if I went out every morning and collected whatever I could find I would do well. We Americans throw away so many things that still have uses. If I had a big truck and a body that would tolerate heavy lifting I would empty houses for people that need to get shed of things before moving. With that there would be fees to go to the dump site, but that would be covered by my charges to empty the house and I could still keep the good stuff and sell it at the flea market. I know I could stay busy and have fun while I did my prospecting. Saturday afternoons when people have garage sales and are getting tired of being there from 7 am to late afternoon and thinking about how they will still have to put away all they did not sell makes them subject to taking pennies on the dollar so they don’t have to deal with their stuff anymore. I would be self-employed, not have to listen to a boss, and I could set my own schedule, as long as I was done by beer time!
It’s funny how I learn things too late to late in life to do anything about them. I learned how to work on electronic hardware back when radios, TVs, computers, were not terribly reliable. Now most problems are software, which for the most part baffles me. I learned to work on cars, but now they are so complex and require so much expensive testing equipment I am lost under the hood of a car. These days if you have a six cylinder front wheel drive minivan it takes a lift to get at the sparkplugs. Some require a jack to lift the engine to change plugs.
One thing seems certain, with low-priced goods people buy more than they need and throw away a lot that still has good use left in them and there are plenty of low-income people who still can’t afford new things, while many high-income people toss things away just to change their decor or to suit their whims. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Whomever said that long ago is still correct. I sure find it interesting to see what people throw away and wonder about why they did it.
On the dark side, recently there were two people here in a jeep that had bicycles on top and the inside was full of things. A man who lives in the apartments here came home from work in the early morning and recognized the Jeep did not belong to anyone who lived here. There was a man outside the dumpster and a woman in it. She was tossing bags of papers out to him. The man tried to hide when the man who lived here was passing by on his way home. The man who lived here called the police. It turned out the bicycles on top the jeep were stolen as were the goods inside and the bags of paper were going to be used for identity theft.
It’s funny how I learn things too late to late in life to do anything about them. I learned how to work on electronic hardware back when radios, TVs, computers, were not terribly reliable. Now most problems are software, which for the most part baffles me. I learned to work on cars, but now they are so complex and require so much expensive testing equipment I am lost under the hood of a car. These days if you have a six cylinder front wheel drive minivan it takes a lift to get at the sparkplugs. Some require a jack to lift the engine to change plugs.
One thing seems certain, with low-priced goods people buy more than they need and throw away a lot that still has good use left in them and there are plenty of low-income people who still can’t afford new things, while many high-income people toss things away just to change their decor or to suit their whims. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Whomever said that long ago is still correct. I sure find it interesting to see what people throw away and wonder about why they did it.
On the dark side, recently there were two people here in a jeep that had bicycles on top and the inside was full of things. A man who lives in the apartments here came home from work in the early morning and recognized the Jeep did not belong to anyone who lived here. There was a man outside the dumpster and a woman in it. She was tossing bags of papers out to him. The man tried to hide when the man who lived here was passing by on his way home. The man who lived here called the police. It turned out the bicycles on top the jeep were stolen as were the goods inside and the bags of paper were going to be used for identity theft.
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