Stigma of Dumpster Diving?

[GoldieLocks]

I hold off explaining I have done dumpster diving. As well I am aware of lots of higher quality car drivers come raid doughnut company dumpsters as well as loose items left near used store donation bins. Its an interesting world, haugh. Any comments?

 

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[newnan man]

When my father was alive he would go dumpster diving for old bread behind a bakery outlet near the house. His yard backed up to an expansive woodland & he would scatter the bread to feed the various birds & critters that it attracted. One day as he was rummaging in the dumpster a woman came up and gave him 10 dollars & told him to go buy him some good food. He bought a 12 pack of Stroh's beer! Nice lady to care so much.

 

[Tony in SC]

My mom told me that during the depression they would walk to town and check the bins behind the grocery stores for eatable food. When I was a kid I would look for crates behind the hardware store. They were a great source for wood and nails for tree houses and wagons!!

 

[ticndig]

I got a new in the box pair of $ 150.00 boots out of tractor supply's dumpster. they put spray paint on them but it came right off with W.D 40
I also got a new trailer tire on the rim with a bad valve stem , easy fix and easy money when sold on craigs list.

I got many pounds of new in the box screws, bolt, and all kinds of hardware at Fastenal over the years.
I got a lot of tools and parts from auto parts store dumpsters ,I don't look in dumpsters for foods , too many birds, flies ,bad smells and maggots for me.

 

[fistfulladirt]

They keep ‘em caged and locked up around here. Some might risk jail time but not I.

 

[FreeBirdTim]

I don't dumpster dive, but I do grab stuff off of people's trash all the time. I even know what day people put their trash out in my area! I've made a lot of money on other people's trash over the years. I've found holiday blow molds that I've sold for hundreds of dollars on eBay. People get sick of them and toss them out for the trash. I also grab any small desks or bureaus that I can refinish and sell.

The best picks are from people who are getting ready to sell their homes. They toss out a ton of glassware and even antiques so their home looks spacious and neat for the open house showing. And after they sell their home, they toss out even more stuff because they don't want to take all that "junk" with them.

I am totally amazed at the items people toss. It's like throwing money in the trash. Bottom line, dumpster diving and trash picking are very smart things to do!

 

[Flipperfla]

I used to work at a national Marine Store chain. They had a process for returns where if the package was damaged, basically couldn’t be put back in the shelf and resold for any reason it was DNF, destroy in field, we would have boxes of product where we would smash with a hammer, spray paint, cut, whatever it took. Wheeled it out to the dumpster a threw it away.
Enter new Manager……. Thought it was really stupid and told us we could have any thing we wanted, just don’t say anything about it.
Then thru a brilliant upper management decision they came up with the idea to combine three stores into one so our customers could drive to the other ends of town. Ours being one to close. You will love the next part…… Management came up with the idea that it would not be cost effective to move all the product and just throw it all away. Now this wasn't a small store by any means, thousands of products. So after the BIG CLEARANCE SALES! 25% then 50% then 75%. The products were so expensive to begin with that really didn’t do much so the rest of the stuff went in the dumpster. So all the employees told everybody….. next thing you know we had a dumpster diving convention going on. So the Company had to hire guards to watch the dumpsters! Then the employees told everyone the guards left at 9:00 so everyone just showed up later! We had a huge stainless hardware selection every nut, bolt, screw, washer you can imagine. They didn’t know what to do with it so my Manager gave it to us. I literally walked out with a shopping cart loaded to the top with thousands in stainless. What was left we called up a surplus business, they bought what was left then we used the money to buy PIZZA FOR EVERYONE! Gotta love American Business.

 

[Escape]

Did a lot of side walk picking on NYC street sidewalks. People would put all kinds of stuff for the trash. Some times valuable. Its different in the City. In an apartment you only have so much space. No attic or garage for storage so lots of things windup thrown out. The best was when old people died. Super would put everything left in apartment on curb. Fountain pens, stamp collections you name it. You just have to open the bag to see whats there. My garbage picking days I can now recall with fondness. To be young again picking threw garbage. Now I mostly throw out garbage.

 

[monkeys uncle]

Have a daughter-in-law who came from a broken home and apparently, very meager means. She and her mother would pick from local grocer's trash for edibles. Today, she put herself through 4 yrs college and has been a successful school teacher and mother to two of my grandkids. Her youngest will graduate from college this December, his thesis has already been published and he will attend graduate school beginning January. YEAH...I'm a proud Father-in-law and grandfather. Gigem!

 

[Tesorodeoro]

These days people just sit in lawn chairs around the stop signs holding a cardboard sign with some hook phrase.
Grab $20 bills from good intentioned people every 20 minutes or so. Not unusual to see them holding a Starbucks coffee and eating a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich while they browse the internet on their smart phone.

Not much dumpster diving that I’ve seen around my area.

 

[Kray Gelder]

Hmmm. Dumpsters behind large merchandise stores are often used by the employees to stash stuff they are stealing, to be retrieved after their shift. Check those out an hour or so before closing.

 

[ticndig]

Hmmm. Dumpsters behind large merchandise stores are often used by the employees to stash stuff they are stealing, to be retrieved after their shift. Check those out an hour or so before closing.

That's a fact ,I got a nice wrench set that was placed in the dumpsters door track at auto zone . looked in one side and saw it on the other side in the dumpster . new in the box .

 

[pepperj]

From buying and selling, all of my life and owning a scrap company for 13 yrs, nothing surprises me in what companies and folks throw out.
The brokers get the returns/company pulls/inventory/dated-shred/melt/bale/crush/destroy-but don't let the consumer have a deal.

Just an example of a company suppling a chain with hardware (nuts/bolts/screws) in the bubble packs that hang on the peg.

Get a call to view/bid on a lot of mixed nuts and bolts hardware
Decline (I didn't deal in steel)
Get another call to view/bid
I go to view
4 skids of packages in boxes stacked 4' high
OK I've already put in 12hrs at the yard now this dude drags me over to look at a pile of crap (new) in packages in boxes on skids.
He proceeds to tell me that there is 1525 different items
WTF!
Not interested in 4 skids-sorry
He says there's a lot more-year won't say how many.
Playing games-I'm starting to walk and he sees me loosing interest quickly. So he said he'd show me-and he did.

We walked around into the staging area and there was on the peg boards all the packages of the samples-WTF!
That's it! I'm sorry not interested.
No-this is the samples of what's on the skids
The 4 skids at the front?
No all the skids-and he brings me around the corner to the warehouse area-all that......
What do you mean?
All that.
All what? (I'm getting really pi$$ed inside at playing this game.)
All the skids wrapped in black plastic
WTF!!!! (I stood there looking out at a small football field size warehouse full of inventory. (I'm totally gobsmacked)

6 months later I owed 835 skids of nuts/bolts/screws in a blind bidding (on my part) $9.3 million worth of inventory.
23 tri-axle tractor trailer worth-had to be stored in a bonded warehouse-couldn't be sold in Canada
Removed in 2 days from their warehouse
Sold to the folks that cleaned up all the inventory from hurricane Katrina

But never give the customer a deal-the big company policy.

( Note to reader-even at a few cents on the dollar and selling for a few cents on the dollar-cents do add up if you have enough sense)

 

[SusanMN]

It’s not dumpster diving, it’s salvaging.

 

[Zincoln Miner]

I do it when feasible. I have to watch out for police, and paranoid people. Found a bunch of useful things over the years which I either keep, or giveaway.

I hate it when others do it, leave a mess which blows up the spot. People throw away good stuff sometimes.