Would you ever consider Dumpster Diving?
Asked by
LunaChick (
1381
)
February 15th, 2010
From Wiki: “Dumpster diving (known as skipping in the UK) is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded by their owners, but which may be useful to the dumpster diver.”
What are your opinions on this? Would you or have you ever done it? Where would you draw the line? Would you eat discarded food or only take non-edible items?
As someone who has gone dumpster diving, I’m wondering what others think of this practice and of those who do it.
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
94 Answers
I do it.
Dumpsters at house clean outs and stuff put alongside the road for trash pickup.
Where I live many people put their “good” trash out early so that other folks have a chance to get it before it goes in the truck. Why have it in a landfill when someone else can use it?
As for food from a dumpster, no way.
if i saw something incredible by the side of the road, waiting for garbage men or recycling truck, i would consider picking it up if it fit in my car. i have never done that/found anything like that, but i would consider it. however, i would not ever consider entering a dumpster and rummaging around in it. it seems like something to get in trouble for, too much trouble, high potential for getting dirty with no definite reward.
I wouldn’t do it, I have more respect for myself, but then again if I were homeless and desperate then I guess I would have no choice.
I have and do dumpster dive. You can pick up some wonderful pieces of furniture that way.
i do it, with food mostly. You would be surprised to know what some people throw out, perfectly edible! and free
I’ve done it like twice. Once from my brother’s college – I saw this really cool lamp. And then my church was remodeling and my dad was helping, so I was there and there was all this scrap sheet rock (I think that’s what it’s called, you know the stuff they make walls out of) that I pulled little bits out of the dumpster and used it as chalk to play hopscotch on the pavement. Good times.
People are always throwing out perfectly good “stuff”. My favorite find was a slide from a swing-set I mounted to the deck of our pontoon boat and turned it into a waterslide! What is more fun though is to put stuff out by the curb and watch how quickly it disappears. More often than not it is the lady in the Mercedes or Lincoln SUV grabbing the stuff! lol!
I live in the same town as a big university where students come (generally) from wealthy families. They would often rather throw things away at the end of each semester than move it home, or to their next place. Things like (not horrible) furniture, clothes, books, and even heavy jars of change. I know people here that make quite a good living off of this. There’s a whole underground economy where this stuff is reused, even resold. (The textbooks you buy from places like ebay or half.com may have come from a dumpster dive.)
I have not done it myself, but that’s because I haven’t gotten the timing quite down (gotta be at the right place at the right time – some homeless dudes have made it a science), and I don’t know if my large butt would do well leaping the edge of the dumpster. But if I needed to? Heck yeah.
I’m sorry I misread it, I thought it said Dumpster Driving… I was picturing someone fitting a monster V8 to a dumpster, I’d have been up for that!
No, unless it was the only way to find food for a child. I would be willing to get really really hungry in hopes of an alternative. My daughter once brought home a chair she said she had pulled out of dumpster. I sent it back to the dumpster.
@thriftymaid I would of sent it back also, it’s so disgusting.
in NZ people leave things at the side of the road – free to good home etc… People just come along and if they can fit it in their car they take it, if not they come back with a bigger car!
RECYCLING at its best – one mans trash is another mans treasure!
I’ve done it to retrieve a litter of kittens that some exemplary representative of the human race tossed in to be crushed.
@syz Good on ya, cruelty to Cats cant be tolerated!
@syz Now that is a good reason.
Consider it? Are you kidding? I’ve done it! And, oh, my…what fun it is!
Hey that’s how I got my Ex-SO
It’s amazing what a good upholstery steamer can do to clean and sanitize former-Dumpster-bound furniture.
Well, I need a couch or a love seat or chair, or something.. I left that stuff with the SO when I moved. I have ONE kitchen chair in front of my rig. So, yeah, I guess if I saw something that might work….
@laureth – I know my big butt can’t get into a dumpster, that’s why I have a partner in crime (it’s not actually a crime, though ;)
@KasperPrip – Most people get freaked out by the thought of eating dived food. I was weary myself, until I actually went diving and saw what was tossed away. If something isn’t way past it’s exp. date or not exp. at all, is wrapped and unopened, how is it suddenly unedible the second it hits the trash?
@Trillian – Check out your local rent-a-center type stores. They can’t rent out furniture if it isn’t in near-perfect shape. I’ve seen couches, etc… behind those types of stores.
I’ve never done it, but I had a good friend with a beautifully decorated apartment. It seemed like almost every time I said something like “I love that lamp!” or “Where’d you find that coffee table?” the answer was out of a dumpster.
Everything in her apartment was in excellent condition and there was nothing gross about it.
For those of you saying you have too much respect for yourselves or think it’s disgusting- what’s disgusting or disrespectful about preventing waste, saving money, and helping the environment?
Absolutely. When I worked at an electronics factory, a group of us did this daily to get hold of circuit boards and occasionally entire units that were being tossed out due to renovation. It was cheaper for the company to discard these items, even if they worked, than to recycle or donate them. I’d pick up power supplies, hubs, CRTs, you name it.
My second love!! Been called ‘Dances with Dumpsters’, miss it, do!
In the States we have, or at least used to have, a different definition. Dumpster diving was when you went behind food stores and went through their garbage in order to find discarded fruits or vegetables that housewives found unsightly, but that were still good to eat. As a runaway teen-ager that’s how I got my meals.
At one point I regularly visited the produce dumpster of a large chain supermarket in my neighborhood. If I got there at the right time, I would find produce that was perfectly fine except for a few bruises or discolorations. this is the stuff you would not pay for, but if the bruise or discoloration showed up when it was on your shelf, you could still use it.
@Pretty_Lilly is that also where your Ex-SO ended up~?
Oh heck yeah! I love dumpster diving. I’ve gotten lovely chairs (50’s plastic, they were amazing), lamps, shelving units, a computer desk (it was missing one bolt. one bolt), rugs that were perfect for catching my ‘art debris’, bikes, kid’s plastic outdoor toys (just needed a bit of bleach to clean off yard dirt).
I’ve dumpstered food too. There’s a Whole Foods type store that tosses yesterday’s bread and bagels. They’re in a hard plastic container and are thrown out as waste- but to a hungry family they are a reliable food supply. You have to be careful nowadays- there are companies who pour bleach on the food so no one will ‘steal’ it. Imagine that- ‘stealing’ trash. harumph
We live in one of the wealthiest nations and it amazes me how spoiled people are. There are people in the world who would kill to be in our position.
@gemiwing unfortunately, the companies who are so afraid something can eat into their profits. I once worked at a pizza joint that made us throw away perfectly good food if a mistake was made—assuming we made the mistake so we could eat it!
@gemiwing Ugh, people who intentionally spoil food so hungry people can’t eat are disgusting.
Big garment stores throw out a lot of clothing, and damage it first, by slashing or hole-punching.
nowadays i would be very cautious about taking used clothing or anything upholstered, because there is supposedly a new outbreak of bedbugs, and they are hard to eradicate. i would not want to take in somebody else’s bugs by accident.
@dpworkin – There’s a not-so-Smart Pet store chain that damages everything they throw away. Would it really kill them to just toss out a perfectly good bulldog calendar without taking a razor blade to it first? They slice up dog sweaters and cat beds, open the bags of food and dump them, etc… It really ticks me off! Only once did we find cat food unopened – thank goodness for employees who realize destroying stuff is a waste of time (or they’re just lazy – either way, I’ll take it)
@LunaChick Why the hell would they do that instead of making donations to animal shelters and rescue groups? Is the food expired or are the beds damaged beyond practical use?
I do it all the time. Many of my computers have been built from discarded components
While there are some things that are best left there (things that no amount of sanitizing will handle) I feel that people like @thriftymaid and @Dibley who object merely on general principle must live pampered lives of excessive wealth. Hey, you two, how does it feel to be a billionaire?
@dpworkin Walmart just got a lot of bad PR for that. You would think that even if they didn’t give a shit about the poor (and it seems that America does want to euthanize the economically disadvantaged as opposed to help them) you would think that donating them for charity would make more sense anyways because of the tax write-off.
@Likeradar Some people will act against their own self-interested merely to avoid aiding others or doing anything that may be even the least bit altruistic. It’s the American way :P
@Likeradar – I don’t know why they do it, which it why that particular store upsets me. The first time I saw the damaged goods, I said the exact same thing. There are animal shelters begging for food, toys, beds, etc… yet this store routinely destroys these items, rather than donate them.
@jerv If the items are going to waste anyway, how is it in the company’s benefit to spend the time and resources destroying it?
Absolutely. Most of my current furniture is 95% functional stuff that other people threw out for the 5% brokenness because they were too busy/unskilled to repair it.
@Likeradar I have a theory, but it seems to piss a lot of people off. Lets just say that America is the only place that such things happen on any large scale ;)
@Likeradar
I agree, it’s upsetting. My husband (when he was a teenager) worked for a pre-Wal-Mart era department store chain. More than once, he was ordered to take a razor blade to a pile of shoes they were going to bin.
Why on earth were these shoes not donated to the myriad people around the world who go barefoot?
Well, because there’s no profit in giving things away. The chain store would rather eat the loss of the no-sale, than eat the loss of no sale plus lose the sale of the dumpster-dive-savvy single mom.
When I was on work experience in an IT section of a company I managed to get my hands on two computers that they were throwing out. Some pretty good stuff in them and I had a nice time messing around with them learning about how they worked as well as getting them to work.
@tentaclepuppy an excellent point. I agree that there seems to be a growing glut of stuff in the US. People walking around trying to fill an emotional hole with stuff. Buying so much that they have to find another place to keep it all. It makes me uneasy on a certain level.
That is how I furnished my first apartment as a college student back in the 70’s. Why spend $10 on furniture with an availability of milk crates, cable spools/reels, cinder blocks and lumber scraps as well as discarded, broken yet easily repairable lamps and , desks, etc.. And back then that $10 could be much better spent on food or a text book or a date or a concert ticket to see Led Zeppelin or a full ounce of weed (seeds and stems included, of course). See ya…..Gary/wtf
One time my mother found a dumpster full of brand new toys.
@jerv I’d love to hear your theory. I promise I won’t yell at you even if I think it’s ridiculous. :)
@jerv I am far from a billionaire. I was made redundant 18 months ago and I am still looking for work, and I have long used all of my savings.
@Dibley Then I am rather surprised at your apparent aversion to dumpster-diving (I may have misread you though). I’ve been there myself for about 13 months, and it does suck. I have few issues with such recycling though. The less money I spend on furniture and computer parts, the easier it is to buy food and pay rent.
Sure, some items are best left at the curb, but I have a pretty nice (probably $400) mountain bike that I found in the dumpster. Ten minutes worth of work replacing a crank arm (scavenged off of another dumpster bike) and I saved myself a few hundred dollars. Somebody just got a flatcreen monitor so I got a free 20” CRT. I’ve also rescued a couple of Pentium 4 systems (back when P4s were still worthwhile computers), some nice kitchen chairs that just didn’t match the previous owner’s new decor, and quite a few other things over the years.
Just because most of the sofas and nearly all of the mattresses you find there are disgusting, that doesn’t mean you can’t find some good stuff, especially near a college near the end of a semester.
@jerv I live in England so maybe there is a difference in dumpster diving to you than what it means to me, I don’t know. Sorry if I offended you.
Last year in Manhattan someone found an 18th Century miniature Irish harp which proved to have been made by a Grand Master.
I’ve dumpstered both food and other items in the past, and I’d definitely do it again. The amount and some of what we consider waste, at least here in the US, disgusts me.
It’s amazing how many people discard perfectly delicious kittens.
@Dibley Maybe it is a cultural difference. Here in the land of excess, people throw away more than coffee grounds and used nappies.
Here’s the actual haul on a (meaning a single) semi-average dumpster:
9 Bags St4cy’s Pita Chips (Full month to Expiration, sells for about $2.50/bag)
1 Can Starching Spray
23 Power Bars (Chocolate and Peanut Butter)
40 5 oz bottles of Sev3n hour en3rgy (Sells for $5 per 2-pack)
1 Full bottle of Vitamin E capsules
6 Bottles Boost Protein drink
4 Blank DVDs with Jewel cases (a shrink wrapped 5-pack missing one)
10 2-pack boxes of assorted n4ture v4lley and Fiber Uno granola bars
1 Cl1ff Energy Bar
1 Dented can of Cranberry Sauce
5 Packs of En3rgy Beans
1 Pack of B3nadryl allergy relief
4 K4shi crunchy L3an meal bars
21 K4shi L3an meal bars
1 Neck pillow
1 Artificial Christmas Tree w/ lights(Came from a $50 box of two. One was broken)
124 Greeting Cards w/envelopes
1 B3lgian Rot4ry Waffl3 Mak3r
1 Slightly used, but perfectly functional D1rt Dev1l Powerless Vaccum
2 Halloween skeletons, still packaged
1 Electric Heating Pad
1 SVC hot/cold pack
1 Giant Univer4l Remote
5 Assorted vitamins and supplements
1 Package H4lls heartburn relief
1 Bottle Tyl3nol
4 Bottles Hand and Face Moisturizer
15 Tr1ple Thr3at Granola Bars
3 On3 Hundr3d Gr4nd Bars
15 Individually wrapped W4rhe4d C4ndies
1 Package of Spearmint flavored gum
12 Packages of Spearmint flavored Caffeine Gum
5 Packages of various makeup
I’ve found hundreds of packages of gum. I’ve found more unexpired bread than anyone in their right mind would want or need. Recently I’ve found over 50+ lbs of assorted chocolates. I’ve found hundreds of containers of different scented body butters and lotions. I’ve found thousand upon thousands of greeting cards with the envelopes. I’ve found several salvageable computers (they get tossed because the power supplies die and the owners don’t realize it is a very simply fix; just swap it out.), I’ve found hundreds of energy, breakfast, and granola bars. :-) I’ve found hundreds of day old donuts and bagels.
I also find the bizarre. I’ve found a dozen department store manikins in good repair. I’ve found dozens of Halloween costumes still in their packages (most priced $30—$50 a piece). Is anyone familiar with the donations given to needy families at Thanksgiving? You know, they come with a turkey, some bread, various canned goods. Well, I’ve found the perfectly good canned goods from these packages tossed into the dumpsters. They eat the turkey and toss the rest.
There’s also the trading and selling element. You know those 40 5 oz bottles of Sev3n hour en3rgy I listed above? I traded 35 of them for a Tivo™ on the barter section of craigslist. I’ve sold the greeting cards, the chocolates, etc.
Just in the last 6 months, I have recovered THOUSANDS of dollars worth of merchandise from dumpsters.
I have an excellent partner by the way. A two person crew is the best workable team in my opinion.
Here and here are pictures of the stuff from the list above.
@where is this dumpster? I don’t mean like what city, but was it a grocery store, neighborhood, mall…?
Geez, Dan, do you need another partner?
I’m available.
Did you find Jimmy Hoffa?
@Likeradar: If you noticed, all the brand names are scrambled. That way, some jerkoff CEO or something similar won’t have dumpster diving pop up when they do a search on their goods. That’s how locks end up on dumpsters and also how compactors come into use. Trader Joe’s use to be a great place to dive, but it got publicized here and here, among other places, and they switched to compactors. So, if you follow my drift, I found that list of items in a SVC dumpster. Remember though, that was an average dumpster. There are some better and worse. Just take some time and look. Here‘s a great primer for dumster diving.
@wilma: A good partner is invaluable. As you can see above, general attitudes towards dumpster diving are intolerant, even hostile. I had to gradually introduce my current partner to the idea, and it took some time. Finding a ready made, enthusiastic partner just doesn’t happen. Start diving yourself, to get a good feel for it. Then try to get a friend involved.
@jerv: No, but I did find an empty container of lighter fluid in a holliewould videeoh dumpster, lol. You do find stuff that makes you think, what the…?
Not only would, but have. I used to live in a commune, and we recovered a constant supply of sellable items to keep our second hand store running.
My brother supported himself, his family, and a regular group of homeless people for many years with cast-offs, recovered from dumpsters.
My first foray into trash picking was at eight years old. I was riding my bike and there was an old door in the trash out by the road, it had a beautiful glass and brass knob and lock-set. I went home and got a screwdriver and scraper. After I scraped enough of the gunky old paint away I was able to get the knob, back-plate and lock-set off the door and take it home. I still have it. It was the first of many.
@Dan There are no stores in my town that I could dumpster dive in, but if someone is doing a tear down or remodel I’ll salvage architectural details.
There’s Craigslist jargon for this: Curb Alert
I dumpster dive on occasion; in fact, I have a very nice couch that would’ve been gathing dirt in a landfill if it had been left to its previous owners’ devices.
I once got a treadmill from a nearby neighborhood, I got my coffee table from my complex dumpster a few weeks ago. I got a designer purse, a pair of diamond earrings. All sorts of stuff. The few days after and before a major season sale at malls are great. Don’t go near the food court, but stay in the dumpsters near Macy’s and Saks. You’ll find crap loads of goodies. I’ve only done it a handful of times, on a lark. But it’s always paid off.
@Dan_DeColumna Dude, you spend too much time cataloguing the contents of dumpsters :)
@TheJoker Different strokes for different folks.
@Dan_DeColumna I think he was just saying that we don’t rumage through rubbish in the UK.
@Dan_DeColumna Hehehe, it just seemed a rather… conclusive list you gave :)
@Dibley You know me so well :)
@TheJoker It shocked me so much when I read all the answers to this, I thought maybe there would be 1 person, but not a whole thread full!
Did you follow those links at all? People with homes, with computers, with jobs, do it IN THE UK as a hobby.
@Dan_DeColumna Seriously though Dan, there may be one or two, but it really is the preserve of the homeless over here. You can go to the local Recycling Centre & buy things for cheap, they’ll usually have cleaned it up. But I’ve never seen anyone rooting through a dumpster / skip who wasn’t homeless.
Fine. Believe whatever you want.
Yes I do. However, there are enough people to make several online subcultures on skipping in the UK. You will rarely SEE someone non-homeless going through a dumpster here either, but that doesn’t mean people don’t do it. Also, people have that lovely social programming that, if they see someone going through a dumpster, they immediately assume they are homeless. Many people who do it as a hobby go out late at night when there is no one to watch them. I run into competition this way myself.
@Dan_DeColumna Ok, well I can’t comment on what you do there because I don’t live there and don’t much about it. Though I do live in the UK and I do know that if anyone is found looking through rubbish then unless they are a well known tramp then more than likely they will be arrested. On the other hand like at @TheJoker said, we do have recycling centres where you go and look through things that are very cheap, sort of like a charity shop.
@Dan_DeColumna You are getting confused with recycling centres. But hey, I only live here you obviously know better!
@Dan_DeColumna I would dive into a dumpster with you any day.
By the way, if any of you saw me walking down the street, you would never mistake me for a homeless person. My motto, “waste not want not.
I lived in NZ and as I said before, (see post above) however I now live in the UK and I reckon dumpster diving isn’t as popular, or well known about because I think there are more stringent laws against waste here?? Also we are quite big on recycling centres here and charity shops are all over the place!! So clothes/ house hold items don’t tend to get left at the road side as much. However I am sure there was a guy on antiques roadshow that pulled a couple of paintings out of a skip and they were worth a fortune!!
Each to their own and if we can save the planet along the way then why not!
I didn’t want this to turn into an argument over UK vs. US diving. @Dan_DeColumna is correct, though – non-homeless people in the UK do dive into skips. There is a Welsh blog that has an entire sub-category called Joy of Skip Diving.
@LunaChick I don’t know what the Welsh do, I suppose anything is possible!
@LunaChick sorry honey, wasn’t trying to turn it into a UK v’s USA thing, I was just trying to help!! Welcome to fluther by the way!
Thanks for the welcome, @sakura :)
@Dibley – maybe my geography is a bit off, but isn’t Wales in the UK?
@LunaChick It is part of the UK yes, but I was referring to England, maybe I should of said.
Have done it in younger days with an artist friend who lived in a loft in the garment district of NYC. He made furniture/sculpture and all sorts of interesting wooden hat forms and other interesting wooden objects could be found that he used in his work.
@syz the mom may have had them there, but anyway, hoorah for you. Did they get good homes?
Response moderated (Spam)
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
