Originally Posted by kemmer
It's ridiculous how much waste the average American produces, and what's worse is that a large percentage of what goes into landfill could still be used. It's easier to throw away that old bike or lawnmower than fix it, even if fixing it means new tires or a spark plug. I think one could make a decent living fixing bikes, lawn mowers and appliances found in the trash and scavenging copper and aluminum. I think you could do pretty well on scrap alone.
I once had a guy stop and ask if he could have the scrap pipe I'd set out. I figured he wanted the couple of pounds of copper tubing but no, he also wanted the cast iron and the 500 pounds of galvanized pipe. I had no idea that stuff was worth anything, probably a couple of dollars but this guy said he would collect a horse trailer full then sell it. Guess he had the yard space for that sort of thing. Any old light fixtures, door hardware, leftover lumber and stuff I take to the Habit for Humanity store as a donation. They take my leftover paint if it's at least a half gallon.
Plenty of people will grab those old bikes and lawnmowers set out by the road. My old harvest gold toilet lasted less than two hours on a dead-end road in the country.
but you should read the
Affluent Country thread.