Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Looking for home decor?
Consider dumpster diving when looking to do some redecorating!
In just about every city in the country certain days are designated to pick up trash that is too big to fit into a can. Items such as furniture, chairs, tables, etc can be found sitting outside for refuse.
Here is a link to the days designated in Richmond, VA, coordinated by zip codes:
http://www.ci.richmond.va.us/departments/publicworks/images/bulkmap.pdf
Happy Home Shopping!
In just about every city in the country certain days are designated to pick up trash that is too big to fit into a can. Items such as furniture, chairs, tables, etc can be found sitting outside for refuse.
Here is a link to the days designated in Richmond, VA, coordinated by zip codes:
http://www.ci.richmond.va.us/departments/publicworks/images/bulkmap.pdf
Happy Home Shopping!
Dumpster Diving Produces Profit!
eBay Sellers Go Dumpster Diving
By Julia Wilkinson
AuctionBytes.com
June 19, 2005
I used to shake my head at tales of people digging through celebrity trash. Wasn't that the ultimate in bottom-feeding? But, like George Costanza on the TV sitcom "Seinfeld" when he plucked a chocolate eclair out of a trash can and ate it ("It wasn't down in. It was sort of on top"), one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Although digging through another person's refuse can be tacky, if someone has set a whole bunch of stuff out in front of their house, waiting for the local trash authorities to fetch it, it's no skin off their nose if someone takes it off their hands. And for eBay sellers, the temptation can be overwhelming.
My first experience in grabbing a freebie off the curb came a few weekends ago, when, as I was about to leave a yard sale, I overheard an elderly man saying to the sale owner, "It's a gold mine over there. I got all kinds of melamine dishes for free this morning." Looking around, I spotted a whole bunch of stuffed black trash bags on the curb across the street, next to various units of shelving and old pieces of furniture. Spilling out of some of the bags were several books, and they looked shiny and new. So I headed over to check them out.
The books were indeed in brand-new to very good condition, and they were about dieting (an evergreen sell-well genre), fashion, foreign languages (textbooks and language instruction also tend to do well), law, and more. From that lot alone I made about $100 in sales so far, mostly by listing on Amazon, and some on eBay. Plus, several of them have yet to be sold. Here's a sampling:
Colloquial Dutch: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) -Audio ($23.95)
May It Please the Court: 23 Live Recordings of Landmark Cases As Argued Before ($15.95)
Language Success in German (Business Success Language) by Language Success... ($11.00)
Fashion Drawing in Vogue by Packer, William ($32.00)
London (Eyewitness Travel Guides) (Paperback) by Leapman, Michael; Scott... ($15.00)
I'm not even including a whole bunch of new-condition Weight Watchers recipe and cooking books I picked up,...that's because I may save those for myself.
But not everything from that lot was worth selling. I grabbed a few things I was not sure about, and after researching them on eBay, concluded they weren't worth selling. Those I will donate to charity, including:
a Raggedy Andy doll, large, which I estimate to be worth only about $10;
A Whoville-opoly game - Monopoly based on the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Also only worth $9-$10.
There were also a whole bunch of sewing patterns, buttons, etc., but at that point I had grabbed so much stuff, and a few other people came over to forage, so I thought I'd leave the rest to others who might want or need it more.
Turns out it was "special pickup" day in this particular neighborhood, part of the city government trash department's Spring Cleaning initiative. Twice a year, in the Spring and Fall, people can put all kinds of large disposables out on their curb on a designated night and the city will come by and get it the next morning. So I did a little online research, and determined that the city would be holding two more special pickup Saturdays for two other residential zones.
On one of those other weekends of "special pickup," I picked up a cement mermaid garden statue, a number of books about art, an old boxed set of classical guitar records (remember records?), and an interesting architectural arch. (The current euphemisms for the latter in places like HGTV and home magazines are "salvaged" or "reclaimed" architectural elements).
And I wasn't the only one trolling around. Turns out there's a whole subculture of people, many in trucks, trolling for reclaimable appliances, furniture, or what have you.
So if you don't mind acquiring some inventory in this fashion, you can look for similar bonanzas in your area. It starts with Google. Go to http://google.com, and do a search on your local area's government. In my case, the government was the City of Alexandria, so I put "alexandria va government" (sans the quote marks) into the search engine window.
When I saw the Alexandria VA city government website pop up in the results, I clicked on that, then followed it down to its link to the Transportation department, where they had a link for Spring Cleanup. There, they have a map that listed which part of the city would have this annual pickup on which weekend.
Your local government may not have such a pickup - some may simply require individuals to call in a special pickup request, and do only ad-hoc pickups. But it's worth looking into, if you're interested. You can also check local governments close to your own.
Happy curbside diving...er, reclaiming.
About the author:
Julia L. Wilkinson is author, "The eBay Price Guide" (No Starch Press, 2006); "eBay Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks" (Wiley, 2004-6); "What $ells on eBay for What," (http://www.yardsalers.net/bookstore.asp); "My Life at AOL," (http://www.booklocker.com); Publisher, Yard Salers, (http://www.yardsalers.net). Julia also writes the "bidbits" Blog at http://juliawww.typepad.com/bidbits
By Julia Wilkinson
AuctionBytes.com
June 19, 2005
I used to shake my head at tales of people digging through celebrity trash. Wasn't that the ultimate in bottom-feeding? But, like George Costanza on the TV sitcom "Seinfeld" when he plucked a chocolate eclair out of a trash can and ate it ("It wasn't down in. It was sort of on top"), one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Although digging through another person's refuse can be tacky, if someone has set a whole bunch of stuff out in front of their house, waiting for the local trash authorities to fetch it, it's no skin off their nose if someone takes it off their hands. And for eBay sellers, the temptation can be overwhelming.
My first experience in grabbing a freebie off the curb came a few weekends ago, when, as I was about to leave a yard sale, I overheard an elderly man saying to the sale owner, "It's a gold mine over there. I got all kinds of melamine dishes for free this morning." Looking around, I spotted a whole bunch of stuffed black trash bags on the curb across the street, next to various units of shelving and old pieces of furniture. Spilling out of some of the bags were several books, and they looked shiny and new. So I headed over to check them out.
The books were indeed in brand-new to very good condition, and they were about dieting (an evergreen sell-well genre), fashion, foreign languages (textbooks and language instruction also tend to do well), law, and more. From that lot alone I made about $100 in sales so far, mostly by listing on Amazon, and some on eBay. Plus, several of them have yet to be sold. Here's a sampling:
Colloquial Dutch: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) -Audio ($23.95)
May It Please the Court: 23 Live Recordings of Landmark Cases As Argued Before ($15.95)
Language Success in German (Business Success Language) by Language Success... ($11.00)
Fashion Drawing in Vogue by Packer, William ($32.00)
London (Eyewitness Travel Guides) (Paperback) by Leapman, Michael; Scott... ($15.00)
I'm not even including a whole bunch of new-condition Weight Watchers recipe and cooking books I picked up,...that's because I may save those for myself.
But not everything from that lot was worth selling. I grabbed a few things I was not sure about, and after researching them on eBay, concluded they weren't worth selling. Those I will donate to charity, including:
a Raggedy Andy doll, large, which I estimate to be worth only about $10;
A Whoville-opoly game - Monopoly based on the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Also only worth $9-$10.
There were also a whole bunch of sewing patterns, buttons, etc., but at that point I had grabbed so much stuff, and a few other people came over to forage, so I thought I'd leave the rest to others who might want or need it more.
Turns out it was "special pickup" day in this particular neighborhood, part of the city government trash department's Spring Cleaning initiative. Twice a year, in the Spring and Fall, people can put all kinds of large disposables out on their curb on a designated night and the city will come by and get it the next morning. So I did a little online research, and determined that the city would be holding two more special pickup Saturdays for two other residential zones.
On one of those other weekends of "special pickup," I picked up a cement mermaid garden statue, a number of books about art, an old boxed set of classical guitar records (remember records?), and an interesting architectural arch. (The current euphemisms for the latter in places like HGTV and home magazines are "salvaged" or "reclaimed" architectural elements).
And I wasn't the only one trolling around. Turns out there's a whole subculture of people, many in trucks, trolling for reclaimable appliances, furniture, or what have you.
So if you don't mind acquiring some inventory in this fashion, you can look for similar bonanzas in your area. It starts with Google. Go to http://google.com, and do a search on your local area's government. In my case, the government was the City of Alexandria, so I put "alexandria va government" (sans the quote marks) into the search engine window.
When I saw the Alexandria VA city government website pop up in the results, I clicked on that, then followed it down to its link to the Transportation department, where they had a link for Spring Cleanup. There, they have a map that listed which part of the city would have this annual pickup on which weekend.
Your local government may not have such a pickup - some may simply require individuals to call in a special pickup request, and do only ad-hoc pickups. But it's worth looking into, if you're interested. You can also check local governments close to your own.
Happy curbside diving...er, reclaiming.
About the author:
Julia L. Wilkinson is author, "The eBay Price Guide" (No Starch Press, 2006); "eBay Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks" (Wiley, 2004-6); "What $ells on eBay for What," (http://www.yardsalers.net/bookstore.asp); "My Life at AOL," (http://www.booklocker.com); Publisher, Yard Salers, (http://www.yardsalers.net). Julia also writes the "bidbits" Blog at http://juliawww.typepad.com/bidbits
Monday, October 22, 2007
An account to dumpster diving
her name is Stephanie
Here's an account of the 1 time i ever went dumpster diving:
I got rid of all my dumpster diving stuff... put it back in the dumpster, after I figured out I couldn't use any of the crap. My friend and I suited up in black and drove out to Midlothian around 10 on a Thursday night... we searched around semi-visible/ lit parking lots adjacent to the shopping centers. Most of the receptacles were actually sealed/ locked in some fashion! This included Target and Kohl's... one of our "targets." We climbed upon some of these, looking for an entrance but to no avail. There weren't any other cars or noises to alert us, so, though cautious, we never stopped what we were doing in fear of getting caught. We hit the jackpot with a dumpster outside of an audio-technology-accessories-I don't know what kind of store. They actually threw out workable mp3 players, complete in their packaging with batteries. Also, there were gift boxes that I did subsequently use for gifts to other people. We traveled onward to a framing shop bin. Think about frames in a frame shop... they usually contain some sort of crappy excuse for "art"... this was in the trashcan and I we picked up a couple paintings. Also, they had frame edges that were completely useless but we thought initially we would find some use for them. There was also a "happy birthday" banner and a spool of ribbon. Useful! We actually climbed all the way in this trashcan instead of picking things out. We did the same for Pier 1. My friend had found a great basket at pier 1 on a "shopping trip" before but this time it was just cardboard and Styrofoam. We ventured past some restaurant cans...some even labeled "grease only" which you could smell for about 50 feet. It was disgusting. We went through a sub shop trash looking for something edible but that was mostly... trash. Also, we avoided certain places for fear of being cut or poisoned. I was amazed at the waste we make as Americans. It heightened my sense of consumerism and environmental apathy in this world. We headed back to Richmond and stopped by Krispy Kreme...they didn't have anything... we just bought donuts. And then we headed over to papa johns because it was rumored that after they close, there are hot pizzas in the trash. not true. all in all, it was an interesting experience. It's kind of life thrift shopping because you have to search around until you get anything good. My friend who accompanied me has grandparents that grew up during the depression. They are old and they still go dumpster diving in the rich neighborhoods of northern Virginia.
Here's an account of the 1 time i ever went dumpster diving:
I got rid of all my dumpster diving stuff... put it back in the dumpster, after I figured out I couldn't use any of the crap. My friend and I suited up in black and drove out to Midlothian around 10 on a Thursday night... we searched around semi-visible/ lit parking lots adjacent to the shopping centers. Most of the receptacles were actually sealed/ locked in some fashion! This included Target and Kohl's... one of our "targets." We climbed upon some of these, looking for an entrance but to no avail. There weren't any other cars or noises to alert us, so, though cautious, we never stopped what we were doing in fear of getting caught. We hit the jackpot with a dumpster outside of an audio-technology-accessories-I don't know what kind of store. They actually threw out workable mp3 players, complete in their packaging with batteries. Also, there were gift boxes that I did subsequently use for gifts to other people. We traveled onward to a framing shop bin. Think about frames in a frame shop... they usually contain some sort of crappy excuse for "art"... this was in the trashcan and I we picked up a couple paintings. Also, they had frame edges that were completely useless but we thought initially we would find some use for them. There was also a "happy birthday" banner and a spool of ribbon. Useful! We actually climbed all the way in this trashcan instead of picking things out. We did the same for Pier 1. My friend had found a great basket at pier 1 on a "shopping trip" before but this time it was just cardboard and Styrofoam. We ventured past some restaurant cans...some even labeled "grease only" which you could smell for about 50 feet. It was disgusting. We went through a sub shop trash looking for something edible but that was mostly... trash. Also, we avoided certain places for fear of being cut or poisoned. I was amazed at the waste we make as Americans. It heightened my sense of consumerism and environmental apathy in this world. We headed back to Richmond and stopped by Krispy Kreme...they didn't have anything... we just bought donuts. And then we headed over to papa johns because it was rumored that after they close, there are hot pizzas in the trash. not true. all in all, it was an interesting experience. It's kind of life thrift shopping because you have to search around until you get anything good. My friend who accompanied me has grandparents that grew up during the depression. They are old and they still go dumpster diving in the rich neighborhoods of northern Virginia.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Dumpster Diving Vocabulary
Found on Wikipedia: some fascinating history and vocabulary of Dumpster Diving. Includes a breakdown of different kinds of divers: artists, recyclers, Freegans/activists, information spies, etc.
More on Freegans
The New York Times wrote about Freegans back in June.
Also, here's a website explaining the Freegan agenda. Some merely embrace waste reclamation, while others pursue rent-free housing and voluntary joblessness. Also mentions Food Not Bombs.
Also, here's a website explaining the Freegan agenda. Some merely embrace waste reclamation, while others pursue rent-free housing and voluntary joblessness. Also mentions Food Not Bombs.
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