+1 that and one of them nationwide bike shops that don't fix anything so much as replace everything.

I hope you're aware of the irony in that statement...

And to add. Best thing I found in a dumpster was a fifty dollar bill. No joke. It was under a 4x5 camera and an old (working) neon sign that said "air conditioned".

I have never found a really good bike in the trash. A few department store machines that I gave to the bike co-op and an ok bike with cottered cranks that had a free sign on it that I gave to a college friend to use on campus.

Now non-bike stuff is another story.
Couch -- This end up frame that was used for about 6 years (with a set of spare cushions that we had) and then sold on Craigslist
Lamps -- many
Wood wine rack/store display -- used for a year as a bookshelf and then sold on Craigslist
Computer stuff (old P2 and P3 machines) that were given away on FreeCycle.
The computer I am using right (P4) now and the laser printer (Hp4000tn) to my right.
Garden tools (shovel, pick axe)
Bales of straw to use in the garden
Walnuts (thousands of them!) put in my backyard for the woodland creatures.
Sheets and bed covers washed and used as seat protection when hauling things in the car
Lawnmower that I used for 5 years at my old house
Radios and vcrs (that was a long time ago)
Bathroom sink used as part of the remodel of our old house
Hand painted poster for a performance of Death of a Salesman from 1979

That is all I can remember.

This kind

where can he beee???

curse my metal body.

The key is no matter how tempting don't get more then you want to eat in a day or two. There will always be more tomorrow night. And definitely don't let your roommate take two full bags and leave them in your kitchen for over a month at a time.

College campuses at the beginning of summer are goldmines if it hasn't been mentioned already.

There is irony in every one of my statements..


Get it?

Or at the end of winter semester. Mmmmm....Penn Christmas.

Damn straight! Many folk singers are worth listening too.

I was up in Providence, R.I. helping my little brother, who goes to Brown, get home after Spring semester. He's even a worse scrub than me, and he was telling me all about the amazing dumpster-diving that was to be had in Ivy League college campuses. At night, we hit up the dorms and got tons of stuff. No bike stuff, unfortunately, but we scored some Dolce & Gabbana skirts, Seven jeans, three pair of Uggs, and a bunch of other miscellaneous clothes. I mean, bags of designer stuff. Those rich kids are too lazy to drag their "outdated" clothes home, so they just pitch them in the trash.

I ended up giving a D&G skirt to my girlfriend and selling the rest on eBay. Made about $300 or so.

Another great feature of college campuses is the recycling dumpster nearest the mail room. Nobody ever updates their magazine subscriptions, especially over the summer. Once you find one that's all mail all the time it's faster than hitting a newsstand, plus if there's something cool you can grab like 5 copies.

bloomington is ****ing fabulous during move out weeks in may and august... found so much good furniture, couple mini fridges and all kinds of other ****

bah! cameras!

the only thing i dont go near is the meat bag. might as well at least have a look elsewhere regardless of what other goodies you take home.

i think the 3 of us should go down there, drink over little 5 weekend, then raid some dumpsters behind the freshman dorms. the upperclassman dorms don't toss stuff like the frosh do.

My grandmother and I would go dumpster diving behind a Target many years ago to get the flowers and plants they'd throw out thinking they were beyond saving. Got hundreds of dollars worth of plants and a great looking yard.

When I worked at McD's I'd sometimes surprise a bum in the dumpster. When the food in the bin got 10 min. old we were supposed to put it in a trash can and count it for inventory. I'd bring that bag of untouched, unopened food out for the bum. Couldn't let the manager see you doing that; they didn't want a crowd of bums hanging out in the dumpster corral.

Technically, you are trespassing and possibly stealing but I've never heard of anybody getting busted for it. Usually people just get run off. Can be dirty, can be embarrassing but that depends upon what level of diving you are at. If you are looking for food, you probably don't give a rat's rear. Could be dangerous if there's broken glass and sharp metal objects in there.


As kids we'd get the aluminum cans out of dumpsters, stomp'em flat and bag them up and cart them down to the recycling center in borrowed shopping carts. I never considered looking for other cool stuff. I was ten.

Then in grad. school, a friend and I would go yard sailing(looking at yard sales) and also for free stuff by the road. Bookcases, chest of drawers, bedside table, lamps, etc. I fixed them up, refinished or painted them. A retired man I knew used to make decent money by cruising neighborhoods on trash day, getting the good junk, fixing it up and reselling it.

I pulled Long-Play records out of a dumpster 20 years ago; they netted over $100 on eBay 16 years later. Of course I should charge myself storage...

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.

Looks like a Gitane Tour De Luxe. late 70's, gas pipe lugged steel.

There are websites dedicated to this. Google it up.

Liability issues. If they'd had a blowout and received major injuries they'd claim to have bought the tire. Lawyers would ooze in and pretty soon the LBS would be out of business. It's why food places don't want people in their dumpsters.

If we got stuff back that was replaced under warranty we had to destroy it before throwing it out. Otherwise, somebody would get it from the dumpster then try to score cash by returning it.

It's called loitering.

i found a falcon frame, i guess from the 70's, im not to sure about everything about it. i am about to fix up with parts from a different bike. To big though, not sure what i will do with it.

When I was little kid my dad worked at a cannery. They'd let him take home whatever he could carry out at the end of the day. He'd take off the rope holding up his pants (I'm not kidding) and thread it thru the gills of the biggest salmon he could lift and toss it over his shoulder like a purse and ride his bike 2 miles up the hill to our little house. Back then Safeway had no cages around the dumpsters so twice a week he'd ride like 8 miles each way and fill up a cardboard box full of produce. We lived like that for some time. It was rad. I've been scrubbin ever since.