aka Skip Surfing aka Wombling aka Finding Free Stuff
Today there was a student flytipping the contents of his room onto the pavement by the recycle point. I'm now the proud owner of 2 "new" stereos, some bathroom scales, a blacklight lamp, a brolly and a bunch of pintglasses and kitchenware.
Less recently i took a mystery box out of a skip and it contained SEGA Dreamcast games and some Reggae Mixtapes.
And living in a studenty area as i do, there are always gloves, hats, scarfs and even shoes littering the roads waiting for me to take them home and make use of them.
People chastise me for this practice. They say it is common and gross. "Trampy" even. But i don't care because free stuff is awesome.
Anyone find anything good recently?
― Slumpman, Sunday, 15 June 2008 12:52 (seventeen years ago)
One of the stereos had a prodigy CD inside it!
― Slumpman, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:04 (seventeen years ago)
i got a perfectly good tennis racket off the street a month or so ago - strings still have good tension in them and i just need to get some grip-tape
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:05 (seventeen years ago)
got a table once. couldn't get the smell of skip out, though, so it ended up back where it came from
― nari, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:11 (seventeen years ago)
Also called dumpster diving. Campus areas around the beginning of summer vacation are good - students just dump furniture and other stuff they can't be bothered to ship home.
― snoball, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:17 (seventeen years ago)
A house mate had a chair we affectionately called Skipchair.
― Jarlrmai, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:20 (seventeen years ago)
Amongst other things I've found computers, CDs, videos, scrap metal, two pairs of speakers that were just sitting in a skip (they'd been rained on a little but were OK), bits of furniture, old electronics stuff (electronics is one of my hobbies so it's a good source of parts), and a smashed up table that I was able to salvage wood from to make shelves.
― snoball, Sunday, 15 June 2008 13:22 (seventeen years ago)
My sister just found a bag full of dildos in her parking lot
― Abbott, Sunday, 15 June 2008 16:44 (seventeen years ago)
1 sandwich size plastic baggie of vegetable matter, looked like litle xmass trees, smelled like skunk piss
― m coleman, Sunday, 15 June 2008 16:48 (seventeen years ago)
I think there is a reason most of this stuff gets binned in the first place.
I guess there might be some retro gamer nerds who would buy those old Dreamcast games, tho.
― Bodrick III, Sunday, 15 June 2008 16:53 (seventeen years ago)
the reason this stuff got binned was because some spoiled student left his packing too late and mummy and daddy already have a stereo and a set of kitchenware. among the stuff i didn't take was a massive computer monitor, which i bet works just fine.
― Slumpman, Sunday, 15 June 2008 17:49 (seventeen years ago)
San Francisco is a totally great place for curbside "recycling". I've put all kinds of stuff on the curb, from 21" displays to 1/2-functioning computers to a box of random electronics to a suitcase, and it all just disappears within hours, if not minutes.
― libcrypt, Sunday, 15 June 2008 18:28 (seventeen years ago)
I was at the tip today and, in among the metal/wood/green waste/etc skips, there was a 'music & books' dumper. I hadn't seen such a thing before. I was dying to go foraging, but it was the only one with a drawer-and-lid to stop idle hands from helping themsleves
― Ismael Klata, Sunday, 15 June 2008 18:44 (seventeen years ago)
who would take music and books to a tip when there must be a charity shop closer to take them to.
― Slumpman, Sunday, 15 June 2008 20:58 (seventeen years ago)
I STOLE HANDFULS UPON HANDFULS OF DECORATIVE PEPPERS FROM THESE POTS IN FRONT OF BANK ASS MOTHERFUCKERS...I ATE THEM BUT THEY WEREN'T DELICIOUS
― 404 Error: Page Not Found, Sunday, 15 June 2008 23:16 (seventeen years ago)