The one in Leiden is better: it's a green mean machine with huge claws that scoops up bikes by the bushel

BTW: so that's where Halfords gets their crap

+1 on check your local laws since you didn't provide a location. Around here it is technically illegal to dumpster dive, and Milwaukee passed an ordinance against snagging stuff off the curb on trash days. A free bike ain't free if you get a $50-$500 ticket and have to return the bike to where you found it.

As to the Buffet dumpster, if it moves it ain't rice. Heard that in Seattle once, one homeless guy talking to another as I was wandering around taking pictures in the city.

I find a ton of real nice bikes right out in front of schools and stores.

lol

Seriously, dumps are a great place if you have a friend working there to pull bikes to the side for you.

Why on earth would that be illegal?

Believe it or not I've personally witnessed (more than once) someone screaming (literally) at the bottle and can collectors on the street here in nyc that that was their trash and they weren't allowed to touch it. You would think throwing something in the trash signals you're giving up ownership of it...

I suppose I can understand being paranoid about identity theft but making it illegal to basically recycle seems asinine.

I''m very jealous of your Burly find.

"Why on earth would that be illegal? "

It turns out it was a revenue generator, now a person has to get a license from the city to collect trash finds. Apparently there were trucks of people running around town collecting stuff so someone at the city said "hey we could charge a fee for that", and BOOM new law on the books.

I asked our city attorney that very question... and he explained it this way:

Dumpster diving:
The county had to outlaw dumpster diving because people were hurting themselves and then suing the county for damages. So they passed a law and put up notification signs. Even that wasn't enough... a guy STILL got hurt and STILL won a lawsuit for damages. So now there are no public dumpsters in our county at all. All private dumpsters are subject to trespassing law whether you're taking stuff or leaving stuff. You have to take big items to the dump yourself and pay a fee per pound for anything that you dump. And you get fined if they catch you taking anything out of the dump.

Taking junk from the curb:
The police department asked for this ordinance because they had tons of trouble with people stealing things out of the front yard and claiming "I thought it was thrown out for the trash man!" His most notable story was of the guys who got caught loading up a brand new gas grill... one of those $3000 outdoor kitchen types... still in the boxes. They claimed "We thought it was out for the trash man!"

Around me the affluent suburbs passed laws against trash picking to keep the "undesirable" element out of the nice neighborhoods. As the economy has tanked around here, more and more ratty/falling apart pickup trucks are driving around looking for anything they can turn in to the scrap yard for cash.
They got tired of these guys driving around their neighborhoods.


That's a good looking truck. A lot of them have rusted through beds, cobbled together wood sides, oil leaking, and ropes holding it all together.

Yeah the junk/scrap mteal dudes are getting fierce around here. Local guy got busted for stealing the sewer and utility manhole covers and selling them for scrap. the scrap dealers had to suck up the losses.

they are stealing the power wires right off the poles here.

Actually, I think it's the other way around. When Halfords customers come out of the store and inspect their acquisitions in full daylight they are só disapointend ...

The best place is Randyjawa's dumpster

^ Ha! Good one. Or anywhere in the greater Thunder Bay area, for that matter. As far as I can tell, Randy Jawa seems to be the only one up there with any appreciation for vintage bikes.

I hate scrappers. The alleys around where I live are infested with them and their crappy wood paneled pickup trucks. My garage collapsed from heavy snowfall last year and they were circling like sharks when the crew came to demolish it. The dumb contractors left some items that we wanted to keep too close to the alley and they were gone in minutes before we even had a chance to get them. My girlfriend and I moved by ourselves this summer and we were so paranoid about them just driving up and grabbing stuff from the yard while we weren't looking. We were definitely sending out tweaker bat signals with our extra garbage and constant car packing. Even when we moved to our new place we almost immediately had people coming by the alley asking about the gardening boxes/fencing we had stored in the carport.

Waste transfer station, York Maine. The bicycle pile is behind the row of refrigerators so you can take your tools with you and just part things out in privacy. That's where I got my Supercourse.

There a good one on fourth and main.

+1, and water pipes, water meters, railway signal wire, metal plaques from cemeteries...

There is an affluent neighborhood near here, that is a treasure trove on trash nights. Unfortunately you must be a resident or have a curbside recylcers' permit issued by the township. And yes, they watch for non residents.

When I discard bent rims or cut up frames, I have to wait until the the city recycling truck comes down the street. If I put them out the night before the battered truck monkeys will go thru ALL of my trash looking for more goodies.

Better than the pet shop. And NO, I wasn't comparing.

Oh, I forgot, Fairhaven Massachussetts has Big Trash Day once a year. That's how I got into vintage bikes. I thought I'd like an old bike to fix up and ride around and there were 3 on every street. I walked around and decided that Raleigh 3 speeds came in a nice shade of green and limited myself to green Raleigh 3 speeds. Then I found Sheldon Brown and wished I'd taken all the Raleigh 3 speeds.

Cody and Tobin's over in New Bedford is nice, too. I guess any steel recycling place can be fun. They sell them by the pound. I saw a Schwinn Super Sport there and passed it up thinking it was just some Varsity varient (really Schwinn's marketing problem all along). I got home and googled it and found this forum. It was gone by the time I got back but I still have the Brooks saddle that I took off of it. They sold me that Brooks by the pound along with a crapped out Phillips 3 speed that I parted out.

I laughed out loud at this one. Some of you would have unplanned poo-poo release if you could see what I have to toss..

I am trying to change the model our Bicycles for Humanity chapter functions under. I hope to start offering decent old bicycles for around a hundred bucks each(plus S/H), on-line, and I plan to start the offerings on the Bicycles Forum for sale or trade section. I must add that the proceeds do not go to me. They go towards paying for our next shipment of bicycles to Africa.

Just yesterday, someone donated a near mint Marushi Road Ace something or other. I plan to take pictures of it at our annual LUSU/B4H Vintage Bicycle Yard Sale that we are hosting today. That event is always a heck of a lot of fun and we raise considerable dollars for our next shipment to Africa. We sell only those bicycles that are not appropriate for use in Third World riding conditions, such as old roadsters and Ten Speeds, not to mention an antique or two...

Report on today's event later...

My favorite trash law was in Illinois (where I grew up). They made dumping AND PICKING UP garbage illegal. The reason we were told is there was a lot of illegal dumping (true). The smarter dumpers would have a lookout, and when a car approached, they would start LOADING up trash. So when the cop pulled over and confronted them, the standard answer was "Hey, I am trying to clean this place up, look, I already have half a truck load!!!" And of course, once the cop was out of sight, they went back to dumping their trash...

There's a cycle-shop on the other side of town from me that takes donated bikes. I used to volunteer out there all the time. It was great because if you found something you got it for it's cost in scrap! Now I help the local scout troop collect donations for them twice a year and I get first pick on all the bikes. Haven't seen anything great come through in a while though. One year a Schwinn Le Tour came through in almost new condition. It wasn't my size and I didn't know anyone looking for a bike at the time so I didn't pick it up but I seriously debated it.