Tips from a "prolific dumpster diver"

A self-described "prolific dumpster diver" in the UK was mass-interviewed on Reddit yesterday, and wrote some detailed, intriguing, and potentially useful descriptions of how he lives and thrives on trash:

Besides food, what are some of the other products that you come across most frequently and use?
Nothing has such a short shelf-life as food, so other things don't get come across really that regularly. Charity shops are always VERY varied so not much same-ness there, except for foot bath/massagers. Oddly I see one at least every couple of months. CRT TVs are common, as are george foreman-style grills. Toiletries are pretty common, and there is waaaaay too much washing powder/liquid for us to use as it apparently leaks often. Flowers are really really common, we always have fresh flowers on the kitchen table and I'm gradually adding the kind of pot-plants you get in a supermarket to our small garden... Yep, the supermarket tends to throw out £50 worth of flowers per week! Currently we have three bouquets of lillies in the house.

IAmA prolific dumpster diver. I have not bought any food for the last 6 months. AMA!

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Xeno

In my day, Universities were the best places to DD especially around end of semester; trustafarians wouldn’t be able to take everything with them when they went home and pawn shops were full so they just left things on the curb or in the dumpster. Full size TV’s, stereos,microwaves and TONS of porn (not to mention tons of bongs and other parephenelia).
- Anonymous
  
  Semester end was also a great time for a new wardrobe. The kiddies took nothing home. Nice jacket, new shoes, some nice pants? Yes, yes, yes. Womens clothes were more plentiful, but mens wear was available if you dug a little deeper.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  In my day, things were similar – but there was no bed-bug problem back then, either.
Lobster

Somehow, the beauty of a nice bouquet of flowers is somewhat spoiled by the knowledge that it came from a dumpster. But hey, if you’re already eating the stuff you found beside it I guess it’s not that big a deal.

Xeno’s correct about universities, though; at the end of the semester people dump all their furniture because it’s too big to take home. Just be wary that college kids are filthy and promiscuous so your new sofa may be infested and/or crunchy.
Anonymous

I get most of my appliances, furniture, and computer parts for free this way – Just wait until the local council does a ‘bulk household waste’ pickup, and then wander around looking for good stuff. Companies will often renovate multiple apartments in a complex at a time, so you’ll suddenly find 5 fridges by the side of the road in moderate-to-quite-good condition.

The biggest problem with this is that everybody else has caught on. If I’m going for a quick look to see if anybody has left out old computers, I have to compete with dozens of people with trailers and vans who resell free things for a living. About 90% of the computer cases have had some parts stripped out by pedestrians by the time I get to them…which only goes to show that the system works. Everything that has value to somebody has been recycled, and the council has to expend less effort removing the remaining refuse.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  A guy in NYC was facing a huge fine a few months back for picking something up off the sidewalk. It’s illegal there and, I imagine, in some other places.
Wendy Blackheart

@Xeno – I live in the University City area of West Philly, and those trustafarians are great for finding stuff. Twice a year, we have Penn Christmas, where they dump stuff off while heading home for the break. Every bit of furniture in my apt except for out bed (which we got second hand from a friend) was found somewhere. Three dressers, desks, a couch, a bookshelf, a tv unit, dvd/vhs shelves, ice cube trays (found those in brooklyn) books, clothing. It helps that people leave stuff out in boxes with notes that say ‘free, please take’.

I’ve left stuff out myself and found it taken – dishes, candles, nasty perfume (christmas gifts), bed sheets, all that stuff. The only thing no one seems willing to take is socks. I left out a box of gloves and socks, and no one took the socks. I had a friend who did the same, and again, no socks taken.

Its pretty awesome. I think the bookshelf was my favourite, because as we were walking out the house, we were talking about buying one, and then BAM, our neighbors were throwing one away, that matched our LR desk and TV unit!
RobertBigelow

Locally, “Fraternity Row” and “Sorority Row” are treasure troves for legions of dedicated dumpster divers, most notably the poorer students on academic scholarships.
chgoliz

I used to have tea regularly with a homeless DD on Jermyn Street in a posh area of London. Day-old pastries in boxes from Fortnum & Mason, a proper teapot and kettle…he even smoked cigars regularly from a legendary smoke shop there.
Anonymous

In Boston, Sept 1st is such a popular DD day that it has its own name and Urban Dictionary entry:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=allston%20christmas
demidan

My next door neighbor who is a bit of a b*tch cleaned out her house and while out behind my garage I checked the dumpster and low and behold Bags and Bags of old Mary Kay cosmetics left over from her days selling MK, Sold it all on Craigslist a week later for $600.oo!
Alice Paul

Another “veteran dumpster diver” story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16816206
Stefan Jones

I regularly check out the dumpsters around my apartment complex, in the guise of chucking out bags of dog poo.

When people move out, they regularly toss out useful stuff.

If I can’t use it, I clean it up and donate it too Goodwill.

I have a nice mini-tower computer (P4, 2.53 GHz) in my hallway waiting to be dropped off.

Big win was a great little laptop. After Windows reinstall I gave it to my mom, who used it for many years.

A series of little wins, from a serial upgrader, netted me enough parts (special DVR case, motherboard, graphics card) to build a MythTV system. I gave them to a co-worker, who did just that.
arbitraryaardvark

I don’t buy food, except instant coffee, or clothes, or flowers, and most of my many books and all my vinyl came from dumpsters. One of my best scores a few years ago was a treasure trove of 1940s-era electronics. A mad scientist had died and his company was being moved out to the suburbs and the mansion was being given to the historical society. Another score was a notebook by a guy who had been a wpa artist. I also have about 100 rescued stuffed animals looking for good homes.
- Anonymous
  
  @#* 100 “rescued” stuffed animals? Hoarding alert!
Art

Dear PDD.

Glad to hear that you’re prospering.
Kaden

There’s a seafood packing plant about a block and a half from here that chucks out live crab culls pretty much nightly.

Garlic butter does not care about the source of that which it adorns.
- Gilbert Wham
  
  That needs to be written in stone somewhere.
MollyMaguire

At the multiple transfer stations around Fairbanks, AK there are covered re-use decks where people leave their usable stuff. It’s awesome. The city built the decks to try to discourage the diving, but people still do that too.
mofembot

For years, my mother-in-law spent only $300 a *year* feeding her family of 5 because she got the vast majority of their food from local supermarket dumpsters. (This was in the days before the compacting dumpsters.) She had started out by asking permission to take some discarded lettuces and such to feed the family’s pet rabbits. But then she noticed some unusual things being piled up in the corner of the (walk-in) dumpster and reported this to the manager; turned out that an employee was ripping off the store. In gratitude, she was given, in essence, the key to the dumpster and from there became part of a network of dumpster divers who would call one another (as in “quick, there are 15 gallons of ice cream that have just been thrown out over at Safeway!”).

Eating at my mother-in-law’s was always an adventure, and given her lack of cooking talent, not always a pleasant one.