Dumpster Diving!

Out by the Lays chips distributor, They had their dumpster full of chips.

Most of the other brands were ripped open... but the doritoes were good. Some still had one week before they would expire. We had my friends toyota overflowing with chip bags, I ate so many, and made meals out of them.

I found two PIII-466Mhz computers in my schools dumpsters (this was in 2003). Earlier that year, when they were given a big grant for computers, they threw out craploads of computers. What wasnt hauled away in dumptrucks was tossed in the dumpster. I managed to haul off 16 computers in a chevy suburban before the damn satitation engineers pulled up in their trucks.
 
Oh4Sh0 said:
Thanks! Thought so, but some kid at work was telling me you could hook it up to a house stereo system.. :)

On another note, would hooking it up to the HU work - would the HU put out enough power for anything to happen? lol
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it'll prolly put out enough power. you just have other problems than just the resistance. like the fact that you have no kinda highpass filter on there. you don't want the highs running through that sub. just hold on to it until you find an amp in a dumpster. :)
 
Yesterday I found a horse in my garage. I kept it and rode it around all night. I named it Pirate.
 
The other weekend I was throwing out some old mini-blinds. I lifted up the lid on the dumpster and inside were two computer towers. I figured they were junk, but I took them back up to my place to see if I could salvage anything from them.

#1: Pentium 3, 800mhz, 30 gig hard drive, 128 MB ram, Compaq. Booted up in safe mode. Restarted and it was fine.

#2: AMD Athlon 2 gig, 120 gig hard drive, 256 MB ram, Compaq. Booted up fine.

I can't imagine why these were thrown out!
 
Bad_Samaritan said:
I can't imagine why these were thrown out!
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When I worked for a local computer support company, I had customers ask me if they should throw brand new computers out and replace them because they had gotten bogged down with spyware. If I had been less ethical, I probably would have sold him a new system, and taken his home (I'm just barely at the 1GHz level). Oh well.
 
I think it's a good idea to check out Best Buy anyway. They tend to put appliances and things outside of the compacters, and so far I've come away with a working mini-fridge and a 27" Sony TV (had a few small colored lines across the screen) that I got fixed for $40.
-Zilla
 
Just snagged a Bissell Powerforce Lightweight Upright 12-Amp vacuum (approx $44 new from WalMart) from an apartment neighbor (placed in the trash pickup spot (under stairwell)) with a brand new bag.

Cut about 1/2 a pound of hair off the brushwheel and 1 inch of debris from the suction hose, works like a dream.

 
When dumpster diving, don't just look for department stores or retail stores. Look around for new construction sites (homes, stores, etc..). You'll be amazed at the tools and stuff you can find. the other advantage, if you are into selling metal, is you can get steel, aluminum, and copper from these places.
Last time I went DD'ing (5 years ago), I wound up with a couple hundred dollars in scrap metal. Not bad for just a couple hours work.

There are 3 reasons not to dive in a compactor. One is quite obvious, it is dangerous. The 2nd one is, most compactors, if you can get into them, can get you into the store (at least the ones I've seen). This can get you arrested for attempted b&e. The 3rd is they are usually locked anyway. If you break the lock, well, that can also land you in jail.

Just thought I'd throw my .02 in here. I have been tossing around the idea of DD'ing again cause it was fun and if done right, a person can get some decent money from the stuff found.
 
Am I the only one who has gone dumpster diving at Mwave's wharehouse? I was there doing a willcall/pickup on some parts, and my buddy and I went around back and rummaged in their dumpster.

All we found was a little tiny fan. It sucked, because the dumpster was filled with exciting boxes from nice pc parts. We were sure one of them would have something in it, but no go.
We mounted the fan on my friend's northbridge heatsink, was there until he replaced his motherboard =)

That was at their old wharehouse. They must be doing well, their new place is Massive and Truely Impressive. I'll have to check out that dumpster next time I'm picking up a case =)
 
i can't believe i just read all the pages of this, anyway if anyones in the pittsburgh area and wants to raid i'm down, most of my friends are too proud to snag freebies so i could use a team :p, i'm gonna try a solo run tonight
 
I have found many things behind stores after hours.
Some of the best times is an area that does a lot of garage sales, people are getting rid of things they have no use for so they sell it or throw it out if it does not sell. The best time is around the holidays Christmas.
the last thing i found was a Wet/ Dry Vac 60Gallon, someone had purposely cut the end of the cord so it would be of no use. Well it does help being resourceful, i found an old surge protector 3prong and cut about 5 inches of it and spliced the two together, cleaned it up and it works as if it were brand NEW.
 
well, my frist DD didn't go so well. i think we went on a day after trash day, because we musta gone to almost 10 places and all of them were either empty, full of regular trash, or full of cardboard. only thing that looked like it was worth taking, were 3 matrisses in the back of a JC pennys, and what looked to be a full outdoor grill in the dumpster of a Costco. Unfortunatly we didn't have space for either finds, and there was no way were could have got that grill out of that dumpster. we're gonna try again on thursady night and see what we can get. i'm gonna try getting some lock breakers or something to open up some of these FBI things. There were at least 3 palces that looked like they had some nice stuff, but they were all in locked up dumpsters. bastards... who locks up their garbage? i mean seriously...

We tried most of downtown concord and pleasant hill (cali) and basically hit electronic stores and large retail places like Fry's, Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, tower records, good guys, sam goody, EXPO, target, Toys 'R' Us, Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco and JC Pennies. Does anyone have any suggestions of where to try hitting next time?
 
I wouldn't ever break locks to get into a dumpster. That's just stupid. Regardless of their reasons for locking their dumpsters, the main purpose is to keep you out, and if you circumvent that then you can get into a shitload more trouble than just regular dumpster diving. Just be careful.

As far as good places to hit, a lot of times large chain retailers are some of the worst places to hit. They often have a system in place for dealing with damaged or returned merchandise(sending it back to a distributor/manufacterer or whatever), so very little of it actually ends up in the dumpsters. I don't know what you are looking for, but some of the best places I've found are local computer shops, especially ones that build computers. A lot of times customers' old computers end up in the dumpsters. Apartment complexes are sometimes good, but there is often a much higher trash:treasure ratio in those dumpsters, so that might not be worth it to you. So I'm not saying to necessarily stay away from large retailers; it's just that there are probably better places out there.
 
I used to work at a local computer shop. If that show was any indication of other like shops, than it would be the WORST place to DD. We threw away nothing. If a customer gave us a machine, the only thing that would make it to the dumpster was the case, providing it was some POS dell/gateway/hp/insert OEM here or AT.
 
dextrous said:
I used to work at a local computer shop. If that show was any indication of other like shops, than it would be the WORST place to DD. We threw away nothing. If a customer gave us a machine, the only thing that would make it to the dumpster was the case, providing it was some POS dell/gateway/hp/insert OEM here or AT.
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Every shop is different I suppose. One of my buddies works at a shop and he said that one day they cleaned up their shop and just threw tons of shit away. Power supplies and drives and motherboards and everything. In any case, I still say that one would have better luck at a local shop than a big nationwide retailer. As always, though, it really depends on the stores in your particular location.
 
Everfalling said:
well, my frist DD didn't go so well. i think we went on a day after trash day, because we musta gone to almost 10 places and all of them were either empty, full of regular trash, or full of cardboard. only thing that looked like it was worth taking, were 3 matrisses in the back of a JC pennys, and what looked to be a full outdoor grill in the dumpster of a Costco. Unfortunatly we didn't have space for either finds, and there was no way were could have got that grill out of that dumpster. we're gonna try again on thursady night and see what we can get. i'm gonna try getting some lock breakers or something to open up some of these FBI things. There were at least 3 palces that looked like they had some nice stuff, but they were all in locked up dumpsters. bastards... who locks up their garbage? i mean seriously...

We tried most of downtown concord and pleasant hill (cali) and basically hit electronic stores and large retail places like Fry's, Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, tower records, good guys, sam goody, EXPO, target, Toys 'R' Us, Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco and JC Pennies. Does anyone have any suggestions of where to try hitting next time?
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OOOOOHHHHHHH, you do not want to do that, once you go to such extremes as to breaking chains and or pad locks you're able to consider yourself as breaking and entering, even if it is a dumpster, and i have heard of departement stores making examples of people caught. :(
 
I looked through the local paper and noticed lots of garage sales in my area for this weekend. Saturday and Sunday night is a good night to go out and hunt.

I found behind Home Depot two 5 Gallon gas tanks, will come in handy for my riding lawn mower.
 
Hmmm.... I have a Gamestop and EB Games both realitively close to me. Gamestop has an open dumpster, not sure about EB. May be worth a look sometime.
 
I'm looking for a dumpster diving partner up in this area (Hartford, Springfield area). I've gone by myself, but think this would be a lot more fun (and lucrative) with somebody else. I'm 23 and have transportation.
 
Well I went again - this time with a different friend.

At walmart this time I didn't find shit. Nor did we at Meijer - compactor.
We went to Rex and he found a 19" Zenith TV (Generic, no A/V inputs)
Then we went to EB where we found some cool posters (I'll take pics in a bit)
Went to ABC Warehouse(electronics), Pier One, Big Lots, Hobby Lobby, Staples not shit.. :(
Last we went to Skip Tate's Appliance - (hometown shop) where I found what looked to be a really expensive 27" Mitsubishi on a swivel with A/V's galore. It had been sitting outside for a while from the looks, so we tried it in a near-by power outlet.. to no avail :(

Atleast we got one TV out of it, can't complain.

posters.jpg
 
There is a local Blockbusters that was closing. Well i decided that evening after seeing the workers clear out the store of movies and then the contractors come in and gut the place clean i decided to go around back to the dumpster to see what i would be able to find. There was lots of broken glass and billboards in the dumpster. but behind the dumpster was a commercial type of all-in-one printer like the big desktop cannon types used in a office setting. I did notice that there was no cable with it other than the power cable, the swivel hinge to the scanner hood seems broken but aside from that looks pretty good. I will test it out this weekend coming. If it works i will post a pic.
 
Long post about my first dumpster dive

Ok well after reading this dumpster diving thread last night (THE WHOLE THING) I was convinced it was something worth trying out. Of course I was a little upset since I live in sweden and don't have huge retail stores like most of you living in the US.
Anyway I figured I'd hit town (10-15 min bike ride, no car :() and check out my school cause last year they had all the old pcs after upgrading in a dumpster outside the school with no locks. I thought since school is starting soon maybe they threw out some old 2.0ghz intel dell machines.
I never made it to town.
On the way there I realised that I Live in one of swedens biggest university towns, and that the university is 5 mins from my house. After arriving there at 1:30am I struck gold immedietly. there was a loading/unloading bay with dumspters and a section that was walled off. The dumpsters contained nothing interesting but the walled off section (with unlocked sliding gate) was full of old pcs and screens. After calming down (decent find on first dive ever) I stripped some pcs only to find most parts removed (hdd and roms) I figured someone else had been here. I did take home a PIII desktop with all innards and a mini tower case with mobo and cpu, and a working hp scanner. Of the 15 screens I took the only flatpanel crt (17" fujitsu siemens) and another generic one for the desktop (first haul... I needed to take unneccessary stuff...) Of course transportation was i HUGE issue. me on my bike with a CRT under each arm and everything in my backpack? I don't think so.. Before sorting the transport problem out I rode around more. I found the Computer Science and Physics departments in the univeristy :D but no dump site :(
It then struck me that there is a science park here in Linkoping. It is where all the headquarters for the major tech companies are. Ericsson, HP, Nokia, Flextronics and a few more. Sounds like a great place to check out.. No joy. I only found Ericssons dump site but they had compactors and shredded documents. I figured I'd call it a night (3:30am) So I headed back to my local Euro Spar and picked up a trolley and pulled this LOUDASS thing about 3km to the university, Uploaded all my goodies, shit weighed about 5.78 tons and things were spilling over the edges. I then walked home with my bike in one hand and trolley in the other. Getting uphill and downhill was a story all on its own. Stupid thing has 4 swivel wheels so it spins 360' easily. Makes life that much more difficult. Anyway, got home at 4:30am (yes 1hour+ to do 3km) hooked up my flatpanel screen and it works, havent tested the other things but who cares? I think its a decent haul for my first time. :)

Thanks for the inspiration fellas!!
 
nobrainer said:
Long post about my first dumpster dive

Ok well after reading this dumpster diving thread last night (THE WHOLE THING) I was convinced it was something worth trying out. Of course I was a little upset since I live in sweden and don't have huge retail stores like most of you living in the US.
Anyway I figured I'd hit town (10-15 min bike ride, no car :() and check out my school cause last year they had all the old pcs after upgrading in a dumpster outside the school with no locks. I thought since school is starting soon maybe they threw out some old 2.0ghz intel dell machines.
I never made it to town.
On the way there I realised that I Live in one of swedens biggest university towns, and that the university is 5 mins from my house. After arriving there at 1:30am I struck gold immedietly. there was a loading/unloading bay with dumspters and a section that was walled off. The dumpsters contained nothing interesting but the walled off section (with unlocked sliding gate) was full of old pcs and screens. After calming down (decent find on first dive ever) I stripped some pcs only to find most parts removed (hdd and roms) I figured someone else had been here. I did take home a PIII desktop with all innards and a mini tower case with mobo and cpu, and a working hp scanner. Of the 15 screens I took the only flatpanel crt (17" fujitsu siemens) and another generic one for the desktop (first haul... I needed to take unneccessary stuff...) Of course transportation was i HUGE issue. me on my bike with a CRT under each arm and everything in my backpack? I don't think so.. Before sorting the transport problem out I rode around more. I found the Computer Science and Physics departments in the univeristy :D but no dump site :(
It then struck me that there is a science park here in Linkoping. It is where all the headquarters for the major tech companies are. Ericsson, HP, Nokia, Flextronics and a few more. Sounds like a great place to check out.. No joy. I only found Ericssons dump site but they had compactors and shredded documents. I figured I'd call it a night (3:30am) So I headed back to my local Euro Spar and picked up a trolley and pulled this LOUDASS thing about 3km to the university, Uploaded all my goodies, shit weighed about 5.78 tons and things were spilling over the edges. I then walked home with my bike in one hand and trolley in the other. Getting uphill and downhill was a story all on its own. Stupid thing has 4 swivel wheels so it spins 360' easily. Makes life that much more difficult. Anyway, got home at 4:30am (yes 1hour+ to do 3km) hooked up my flatpanel screen and it works, havent tested the other things but who cares? I think its a decent haul for my first time. :)

Thanks for the inspiration fellas!!
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That was a great find, a little difficult but at the end well worth it.
 
OMG, I went back to the same place I was diving around yesterday and I picked up about 8 4gb hhd (yay :rolleyes: ) and 8 cd-roms and floppy drives. I also decided to try and get at the monitor that were face down. I wanted to see the size of them... I get one out (weighed a fuck load) and it turns out to be a Sun 21" crt :D I called my dad and he picked me up 15 mins later with 3 of these in the boot!!
 
nobrainer said:
OMG, I went back to the same place I was diving around yesterday and I picked up about 8 4gb hhd (yay :rolleyes: ) and 8 cd-roms and floppy drives. I also decided to try and get at the monitor that were face down. I wanted to see the size of them... I get one out (weighed a fuck load) and it turns out to be a Sun 21" crt :D I called my dad and he picked me up 15 mins later with 3 of these in the boot!!
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wow! do the 21"s work?
 
a few weeks ago I was at work taking out the trash and i noticed a large dumpster trailer. it seems they were remodeling a store near me. I got about 10 phone jacks and a whole lot of phone cable. i was happy!
 
Dumpster diving is a weekly event with my friends, and last night/this morning we pulled in a pretty good load.

200 Staple's CD-R's
1 Maxtor 250GB ATA133 Hard Drive
2 5 Port USB Hubs
1 Leather Computer Chair (Mint)
Approx. $1,500 worth of Peachtree Accounting Software. (Can you say Ebay?)

and a mix of other stationary too (I probably have 1 million post-it notes by now, lol).

Any accountants on [H]?

-Andrew

I
 
I found a nice whirlwind vacuum(or whatever the hell those things are called) a couple nights ago. First time dumpster diving in KC all summer. It was just clogged up all to hell and the power cord was cut off it, but those were quick fixes. And I think I lost a piece when I pulled it out of the dumpster, so I had to fabricate the piece that goes on top of the collection dealie to seal it. It works great, though. Price tag is still on it and it says $249.99. I was going to go back out last night but for some reason I was damn tired and ended up going to bed at 9:30. :( Oh well. I'll be going out tonight.
 
Garzilla05 said:
Dumpster diving is a weekly event with my friends, and last night/this morning we pulled in a pretty good load.

200 Staple's CD-R's
1 Maxtor 250GB ATA133 Hard Drive
2 5 Port USB Hubs
1 Leather Computer Chair (Mint)
Approx. $1,500 worth of Peachtree Accounting Software. (Can you say Ebay?)

and a mix of other stationary too (I probably have 1 million post-it notes by now, lol).

Any accountants on [H]?

-Andrew

I
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WOW....Great find.
 
i found a $100 bill on the ground at my local community college today. no one was around when i found it, and no office was open for me to turn it in. plus, even if an office were open, i'd think the ppl there would just take it and claim someone else picked it up. so, yeah, put that into my new w-4 :)

not a dumpster dive, just something hella cool that happened today that i thought i'd share... :D
 
Found a nearly complete HP Pavillion 8275 setup today.


All I need to do is stick one of my Slot Pentiums in it, and she should be good to go.



Has a weird harddrive, tho. I never seen one like it.


Its NOT scsi, but its ultra thin, and as wide and as long as a large DVD drive.
 
Komataguri said:
Has a weird harddrive, tho. I never seen one like it.


Its NOT scsi, but its ultra thin, and as wide and as long as a large DVD drive.
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Is it by any chance a quantum bigfoot? I never considered then ultra thin but they're the only "modern" 5.25" hard drives I can think of.
 
jpmkm said:
Is it by any chance a quantum bigfoot? I never considered then ultra thin but they're the only "modern" 5.25" hard drives I can think of.
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Donno, I'm still kinda half asleep, and don't wanna go stabbing at the PC with hazy eyes and a screw driver :p


I do know its 8gigs tho. Thats what the stock 8275 shipped with, weither whoever gotrid of it upgraded it with a bigger 5.25 harddrive is up in the air.
 
jpmkm said:
Is it by any chance a quantum bigfoot? I never considered then ultra thin but they're the only "modern" 5.25" hard drives I can think of.
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exactly what I was thinking. those are the worst drives.
 
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