Working with garbage is fun as hell. Everyone looks down on garbage men, but really its one of the better jobs. I cant speak for the guys that collect the garbage in he bins outside your house, but the guys that drive the roll-off trucks love their job. If we have a box at some random or weird location, instead of dumping it at a landfill (or wherever it is meant to go), we will sift through it for some cool shit. Always great when you find some neat stuff that other people thought was garbage. In this sense, it is one of those jobs that is always changing - you'll never have the same day twice. I have a different perspective than most, but the guys I have talked to love their job.
I really enjoy this Portlandia skit about dumpster diving. I'm not bashing it in anyway, I love dumpster diving. There are so many treasures that people throw away. Some of my best furniture has been found on the side of the street.
Thats hilarious! The guys rat tail is great haha. But yeah, minus my bed, everything I had in my room was from a dumpster. Dumpsters are very weird. Once something is in a dumpsters, its like that thing increases in potential value. I will throw something away because I dont have a need for it anymore. But if I were to find that thing in a dumpster, I could think of so many ways it would be reused.
Hahaha, that's awesome. Do you watch Portlandia regularly? Also, do you live in an area where a lot of rich people throw out really nice things?
I have never heard of it before you linked it. And yeah I do, but the business is located in a city and doesn't bother with home remodeling or anything like that. Most of the business comes from special waste (asbestos) and random construction sites, so when interesting things do come in its usually from sites that are demolishing an old factory or house. And sorry for the late reply, I have been busy with my last essay of the semester.
I don't think I've ever walked past trashcans and not wondered what would be inside. If I'm alone, sometimes I do take a peek. Some people throw out the most amazing stuff! My family has trash-picked 5 TV's and a working PS2 (poor kid) among countless bits and bobs and pieces of furniture. I love playing the mental game of "What could I make with that person's garbage?" Sometimes I just think about making a giant cardboard fort but sometimes I come up with interesting things out of it.
I know a guy that makes beer money selling stuff he finds in the trash on university campuses. In the UK, the law states that organisations have to throw out electronic waste in a special bin that is taken away by a special disposal company. So by each department there are these large boxes you can just rummage around in if you want. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for it. EDIT: This law is called WEEE. Ha ha ha.
Wow, I wish that law existed here... I bet my university throws out loads of stuff I could salvage and build into robots (totally not designed for world domination). Large institutions are huge boons for finding random free things. The German ministry of Education even threw out 190,000 euros worth of computers. Could you imagine finding hundreds of computers that work perfectly and just need a new HDD and OS?
Yeah, I suppose the issue for these institutions is that the red tape and labour costs associated with fixing up these computers exceeds the cost of buying new ones. Also, computer deprecate pretty quickly. It's a shame, but sometimes the economics of these things works out so that shit ends up getting wasted. I also wonder about making robots using this stuff, me and some other people have been thinking of starting a robotics society at our university. I am nearing the end of my penultimate year so time is of the essence. It's going to be hard finding people to join us if we haven't got a clear idea of what we're going to do. Something tells me some serious planning's going to happen this summer...
It's incredibly frightening when you factor in that most/some of these disposed electronics end up in developing countries where they get melted down for metals. Melting plastic and heavy metals without any protection is pretty horrific. I try to hang onto technology as best I can, reselling and reusing whenever possible. I think at this point every TV at my parent's house has an old computer hooked up as a media server. I wish you luck in starting the society! There are a lot of different options there from competitive groups that built autonomous subs/planes/cars/etc to people you just like to tinker with arduinos and such. At my university we have a society dedicated to building things, whatever the students want, so we've built a wind turbine (30 feet tall) and are starting on a hovercraft. If you're at any sort of technical institution I can't imagine it will be hard to find loads of interested people.
It's not only electronics. In many parts of the world burning trash is just what people do. One time I was at a little beer garden in Vietnam and my eyes started burning and watering and it was getting hard to breathe and there was this weird smell. I walked around the corner and this old man had a huge pile of styrofoam (polystyrene) and was in the process of throwing more gasoline on it to get it to burn faster. Didn't even finish my beer.
Yeah, my parents' house has loads of computers in various states of disassembly. I remember people used to be surprised when I'd say that we had about five computers. They're cheap as shit now, though. Oh well. I feel sort of inclined to keep them running, but the energy usage... I wonder if one could plot a graph showing negative environmental impact of disposing of old computers and getting a raspberry pi to replace them (more energy efficient) and keeping the old things running. It would be interesting to see where those two lines intersect. One other idea is to scrap the society idea (I will have a dissertation to write, I suspect it might be too high-maintenance) and join the local hackerspace. Especially because they'll have CNC machines and 3D printers... rubs hands together gleefully So many ideas, so little time.
This seems like a badass idea for a blog. I bet you'd have a cult following just blogging about and listing the interesting things you find.If we have a box at some random or weird location, instead of dumping it at a landfill (or wherever it is meant to go), we will sift through it for some cool shit.
Yeah it could be a great blog - I'd definitely follow it. Unfortunately I'm at school and don't go to work with my dad too much. And sorry for the late reply. I have been pretty busy with this last essay of the semester.
When I left for college, my grandpa said to me, "I don't care what you do in life, you can be a garbage man, a doctor or a lawyer, it doesn't matter. Just be a professional." It's not always what you do, but how you do it. Are you a garbage man? Is this what you do? What are some of the cool things you've found? In this day and age of TV shows like Pickers, I'm surprised there's not a reality TV show about garbage men and what they find. -I bet it would be very popular.
No I'm in school, but my family owns a garbage company so I grew up around it. Instead of daycare, my parents put me in the truck with some of the drivers haha. But most of the cool things we find come from repurposed factories or office buildings. Most of the construction companies couldn't be bothered with keeping the stuff for some reason. I think my favorite pick was when we got a dumpster full of candy. A company managed do damage the boxes that they ship their gum in so by law they had to throw it away. We set the dumpster down in the parking lot and all our workers took home boxes of rand gum and candy products. For about a year we had one of those promotional stands filled with gum and other stuff. It was a great pick haha. And then another good pick was when we found boxes of old playboy magazines. I think some of them are worth quite a bit. I would love to watch a show like that, but I feel like there wouldn't be enough drama. Most of the business here is very friendly. Instead of competing like you would see elsewhere, the owners are all friends and help each other out. If one is too busy to handle a new customer, they will recommend someone who is able to help. Even when there a bad day and a truck breaks down, you can ask a friendly company to do you a favor and help out until you have that truck running again. Things could have changed since I havent been to work with my dad in a while, but I remember being amazing that he wasn't trying to destroy his competition. Sorry for the late reply.