5 ms·
I don't care if people sell clean, safe, reasonable things that are gleaned from a dumpster. That's waste reduction and a net good. Years ago, I lived in a cit
by tjr 7y ago
I don't care if people sell clean, safe, reasonable things that are gleaned from a dumpster. That's waste reduction and a net good.
Years ago, I lived in a city that decided to offer a "garbage collection amnesty week". For one week (with your regular pickup day, Monday-Friday), you could put out as much garbage as you wanted at the curb, and it would be collected for no extra charge.
The city apparently vastly underestimated how much garbage was going to go out. It was not all collected that week. There was junk sitting out on the curb, all over the city, for 1-2 months.
There were also people driving around, searching for cool stuff. For example, one of my items out on the curb was an old bird cage. One morning, the bird cage was gone, and there was someone else's old doll house in its place. A friend of mine found a complete metal suit of armor; not really functional, but a nice decorative piece.
There can definitely be value left in someone else's trash. But if ordering on Amazon, as a paying customer, I would at least want to know up front if I'm buying something that came out of the trash, and make my own decision on if I wanted to buy it or not.
- qorrect 7y ago> A friend of mine found a complete metal suit of armor; not really functional ... so you fired arrows at it from a longbow ? And he got injured, then had to explain at the hospital why his friend shot him with an antique weapon ? S'pretty great.
- notme77 7y agoBoston has "Allston Christmas" on Sept 1st each year. Tons of people move. There's lots of nifty stuff on the sidewalks waiting to be discovered.
- james-skemp 7y agoMadison WI has this around that time from when college students move. I feel like that might be a University-town thing.
- logfromblammo 7y agoIf you live in a university town, find out which dorms the international students live in, and locate the nearest trash bins. At the end of spring semester, during finals week, check in and around those bins daily. The graduating international students who are returning to their home countries frequently discard things that they bought locally, as it may be too expensive to ship larger items in either direction. Those who will be returning in the fall might put their dorm stuff into storage, or they might just toss it, and re-buy if/when they return. The cheaper it is to ship, store, or sell, the lower the quality of the items discarded. That's why you focus on those who will be flying home.
- on_and_off 7y agoI don't know if that a French thing or not, but in France, in many cities there is a day designated as "encombrants" (~ bulky). Basically for when you want to throw out large objects. There are people roaming out the streets on that day and hoping to find something worth reselling before it gets picked up by the city. As far as I know, we haven't encountered the issue of too much stuff being thrown out that day, but maybe this is because this happens regularly.
- padraic7a 7y agoWhen I lived in Germany it was the same. But rather than people looking to sell item it was people looking to furnish their homes. A great system really.
- bombela 7y agoIn California you get only one day a year of free pickup for bulky items. Its restricted to appliances, furniture, and mattress. Furthermore, you have to schedule in advance with the company handling your garbage pickup.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoRecology SF and San Mateo allots two bulky item pickups per (single family) household per year. Up in Novato/Sonoma it's 4x annually.
- 7y ago
- Clubber 7y agoIn my area, people make a living driving around and picking up discarded items to fix up and resell.
- lisper 7y agoYeah, this. The problem is not that it's trash, the problem is that its provenance is not being disclosed.
- didericis 7y agoBut if ordering on Amazon, as a paying customer, I would at least want to know up front if I'm buying something that came out of the trash, and make my own decision on if I wanted to buy it or not. I agree, but let me play Devil's advocate a moment. I went to a gin distillery on vacation a couple months ago. It was well known, well respected, sold internationally, etc. I'm not really into gin, but I thought what they gave us tasted pretty great. It was well packaged, their physical location was in a nice spot and had a well decorated, cool little area where they went over the history, their employees all seemed well educated and happy to be there, etc. When we got to look at the distillation process, we went into a very small, narrow looking hallway with all the equipment and got to see the gin coming out into a big, pretty unceremonious looking plastic bucket. Their distillation equipment was expensive, everything was very clean, and it seemed like this was just their process. I didn't really see anything wrong with it. But, if at the point of sale, someone had a picture of the gin going into that plastic bucket and let everyone know that this was a part of their process, I think fewer people would buy it. And for no good reason. The gin was great, everything was clean, and I'm sure cleaning and maintaining that setup would be easier to deal with than some sort of automatic bottling machinery. Although most people think knowing where a product came from is good information (and it is if you have a good understanding of the context/what to compare it to), people have a tendency to be irrationally averted by things that don't really have any bearing on the product. I'd argue a product being "new" vs "warehoused" vs "trashed" is one of them. If the product is in the same shape, it shouldn't really matter if it was on the front and center shelf, in the back of a warehouse, or in a dumpster. It's the same product. Emphasizing where it comes from can cause people to irrationally avoid it and have it go to waste when it's perfectly fine.
- chrisweekly 7y agoGreat points. Related note: studies show (citation needed, sorry), people consistently perceive wine as better-tasting if they believe it's more expensive.
- Aeolun 7y agoI tried tasting really old, really expensive wine a little while ago. I can't say I find it very different from new and cheap wine (certainly not better-tasting)...
- js2 7y ago> There can definitely be value left in someone else's trash. Many many years ago I put a piece of scrap butcher block on top of the yard waste pile near the street in front of my home. Later that day a Mercedes drove past, stopped, a woman in a suit got out, examined the butcher block, put it in her trunk, and drove off. I hope it's still serving as a really nice cutting board or some such in someone's home in Miami.
- goodcanadian 7y agoIn Sydney, Australia, there is an annual "council cleanup" day. It rotates around to different areas each week. If I recall correctly, you can put your junk out up to a week early, and people definitely go around looking for good stuff, including professional junk dealers who are looking to fix things up for sale. We got some good things that way. Whatever is left at the end is hauled away by the council.
- chii 7y agoannoyingly, people would come out and strip wires (for the copper) off appliances. But they tend to do it messily, and leave a big gaping mess everywhere (e.g., smashing up TVs and leave broken shards of glass everywhere).
- amatecha 7y agoHeck yeah man, we used to have that around here as well and I found tons of amazing old computer equipment that people had discarded. Every single thing I grabbed still worked. Unfortunately I don't think any municipality around me does this program anymore :(
- DrScump 7y agoI lived in a city that decided to offer a "garbage collection amnesty week" Santa Clara does this once a year. I've seen people coming from wherever and dumping their trash on Santa Clara sidewalks (in a neighborhood for whom it's their free pickup week) to save dump costs... including hazardous waste like paint and chemicals.
- crimsonalucard 7y agoThey have craigslist for this stuff nowadays. In college neighborhoods you can just dump it on the street it will get picked up by some student who needs it.
- majewsky 7y agoCraigslist is fine for getting rid of single items. But what if I sort through my drawers and end up with a pile of 100 small things that I want to get rid of? I ain't putting 100 posts on Craigslist (or rather, the local equivalent).