Dumpster Diving

[Scott]

My Grandmother live in a small, small town in NW Minnesota.  Population of around 15-20 people (honest).  However there is a large Indian Reservation just to the North of her and they use her town for the Post Office and to dump their Garbage.

My parents went up to visit her last weekend and then came to see us on Monday.  My mom whips out two copies of Star Wars Galaxies and says that my Grandma saw them in the Garbage dumpster and pulled them out.  And there wasn't just 2 copies there were 7 of them.  

I chuckled and took them knowing they had all been stolen from somewhere...why would someone throw 7 copies of SW Galaxies away.  Not sure what I'm going to do with it either since I don't really have time to play and you have to pay get on the game too I believe.  Still pretty funny

Anyone ever pulled anything from the trash?  Furniture...my one buddy in college picked up a Couch from the side of dumpster to use on their porch at their rented house.  It was a pretty nice couch

[DSJ™]

There was only one real Dumpster Diving in its time.

Dumpster Diving-Star Wars Style

As for todays Dumpster Diving, I have never found anything as I can't stand the smell of all that garbage!

[Xander]

Sometimes you can get whole baked potatos and gently used cheeseburgers out of the dumpster at Wendy's, but I digress.

I've never gotten toys out of an actual dumpster, but a buddy of mine just last week found a bunch of toys in a trash pile on the curb.  Millenium Falcon, Jabba's playset, Hoth, figures, and Gi-Joes (all vintage!).  He doesn't know anything about them and can't identify a lot, so I'm going to check it out soon.

[Matt]

Danol?

[jjks]

I believe this man might be able to tell you a thing or two about trash...just don't get him started on movies  

[SilverZ]

Danol?

Heh.

The gold is not in them thar hills, it's in trash dumpsters...

Every Thursday morning I take the Viper Blue out for it's garbage pick up day, I have found DVD thrown out by a jealous wives who said wait I have some more for you. I just don't snoop on rentals, ever since I found that thrown away 14K White Gold Bifocals in 1988. I look for what some jealous wife is throwing her husbands prize collection out. I once got a nice U.S. Coin Collection, thrown out because the husbands wasn't paying enough attention to the angry wife.

The Pride Sundancer Scooter - Viper Blue

[Scott]

I believe this man might be able to tell you a thing or two about trash...just don't get him started on movies  

For the man that has everything in your life

[Darth Kenobi]

Just before I entered fourth grade my friends at the time and me went to a local school and found a whole bunch of supplies that they were getting reid of for new stuff.  I ended up with a few hundred pencils and sold them at school for $0.25 cents to people and made money for stuff I wanted and used others for pencil fighting.  Other then that I haven't been able to find anything to good in the trash.

[Thomas Grey]

I am a 'found object' scuptor. I collect junk that I feel has artistic possibility and combine it with other junk to create and recontextualize these objects into a sculpture. This is why I have become a dumpster diver. Ultimately, finding the junk is as much a part of my creative process as combining the junk to create art.

In my quest to find aesthetically pleasing junk, I have come across many cool things that don't fit the art part, but are collectible or worth picking out of the coffee grounds and fruit rinds...

Unfortunately, I have not found anything that relates to Star Wars. But I have found full toy chests with all sorts of goodies in them. My best find toy-wise, was a dumpster with at least 4 chess boards and pieces (complete chess sets), one of which was 3ft x 3ft and the pieces were huge. There was also one made of marble and another with mother of pearl inlays. Also in this treasure dumpster: collectible card sleeves, 6 J. R. R. Tolkien books without damage (the LOTR set included) and some nice TSR D&D books. I assume either a mother with no clue or a new girlfriend/wife dumped the stuff without the owners consent.

I will say this about dumpster diving...

If you think for a moment about all the mothers that threw away all those 1950's sports card and comic book collections that we all hear so much about, there is always the possibility that this can happen again and if you look the odds are better that you may stumble onto something like this.

I have a few dumpster diving tips (for the serious diver):
1. Get some good work gloves, a nice stick or something to move trash with, tools (you never know when you may have to do a little work to get what you want and some rags to wipe off anything if necessary.
2. Spring is prime time, especially around college campuses. The things that rich, out-of-state students will toss is ridiculous.
3. If you are busted tresspassing or looking through someones trash, tell them you are an artist looking for materials to use in your art and they will help you find stuff or just blow you off.

[Morgbug]

I don't dumpster dive much for stuff, but I do raid the recycling bins to get boxes for shipping.  Pretty tame really.  

I can't think of too many things I'd want from a dumpster anyway.  I have little to no artistic talent (though I like the suggestion, should I start doing this) so the odds are remarkably limited.  Also, living in suburbia, there are few non-commercial dumpsters around anyway.  

Really like the college campus idea.