Quite interesting. Of course this has been going on for generations, but it is still amazing how much perfectly fine items, even valuable items are simply thrown out.

Very briefly I worked on a bin round and the person who I was working with had pretty much furnished his entire house with stuff that had been thrown away, Womble style.

He'd recently got a racing bike.

The most amazing one though was the TV. 28" TV he picked up because he was at the tip at the right time. He saw some guy struggling to get the TV out of the back of a Range Rover and went over to offer his help. Being conversational he asked the guy what had gone wrong with the TV, for it was pretty new looking.

"Nothing. I just lost the remote."

Guy loaded it in the back of his van, took it home and bought himself a £40 universal remote.

Back of the net.

I love dumpster diving! I get lots of interesting pieces of furniture that I refurbish. I currently have a chair stripped down to the springs that I need to reupholster and a bench that just needs new fabric.

When I was kid, my father used to take us on newspaper and cloth runs around the neighborhood. We used to get 2cents a pound for cloth and 1/2 cent a pound for newspaper at a recycling center. Great way for us kids to earn a couple of dollars a week.

And let's not forget our local Freecycle groups. Have gotten a few great finds there.

EDIT: Check out this site: Trash can be worth money. Make sure to link on complete site. ,2933,386801,00.html

We do this... probably more often than could be considered healthy. It's like an addiction, man.

When one of the CSU's is out for the summer, a ton is tossed into their bins. It's an unofficial dumpster diving day.

Campuses are great places to find things. Reminds me of an article NY Times ran on Freegans. Will find it and edit into post...

There you go.