One Person's Trash is another One's Treasure

The Pro Dumpster Diver Who’s Making Thousands Off America’s Biggest Retailers

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/high-end-dumpster-diving-matt-malone/?utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Please don't try this if you have hoarding tendencies, but this can be a good way to earn an income environmentally.

Plus the challenge is fun when you're salvaging "junk"

I'm currently trying to make furniture from cardboard boxes...

I saw this huge wooden spool outside I wanted to keep at my dad's office and I was like "YES FREE TABLE TO MACGYVER" but it was decayed from sitting out there. It crumbled when I poked it T_T.

Somebody chucked a perfectly good office chair outside for whatever reason. I wonder if I can keep that one cuz it's been outside in the middle of the parking lot for like a month or two collecting dust... and other things...

When our house was first built, there were whole neighborhoods being built around us. Our house was a basic, we needed to build the fences, install rain gutters, deck and more ourselves. I noticed the tremendous waste at the construction sites around us. So I asked the various construction crew supervisors if I could have materials that were just going to the dump. They invariably said yes and I ended up with enough nails for all projects plus 10 years worth; also of screws and enough scrap wood to do many major projects as well. We got more still. What that guy did in that article is on a much larger scale, but it's the same thing really. In a few months I collected enough waste material to build an entire house; it's impressive the amount of perfectly good material being thrown away.

melodiccolor wrote:When our house was first built, there were whole neighborhoods being built around us.  Our house was a basic, we needed to build the fences, install rain gutters, deck and more ourselves.  I noticed the tremendous waste at the construction sites around us.  So I asked the various construction crew supervisors if I could have materials that were just going to the dump.  They invariably said yes and I ended up with enough nails for all projects plus 10 years worth;  also of screws and enough scrap wood to do many major projects as well.  We got more still.  What that guy did in that article is on a much larger scale, but it's the same thing really.  In a few months I collected enough waste material to build an entire house;  it's impressive the amount of perfectly good material being thrown away.

Crazy, how did you store that stuff man.
whole house of house material!

That's something I've always wanted to do, cause I know what kinda stuff people throw out, though it's illegal in my state. In New York we used to hit the town dump and we used to get loads of cool working stuff (including a bunch of almost new bikes, heaters.) Now I just kinda keep my ear out if someone is throwing out something I can use or sell I just grab it.

Maybe you can talk to store managers to see if they'll allow you to go through stuff before it's dumped in the name of recycling.

Yeah if you knock on their door and ask, usually they don't care.