Dumpster Diving

Dudess

Aishae wrote: »

the expensive stuff doesnt end up in the bin for us - but theres plenty with more money - or even less money who dont 'repair and make do' etc - just chuck out a coat missing a few buttons etc. so you never know what you'd find.

A girl I knew at school threw out a leather jacket - that's just being a dick tbh...

Daemos

robbie_998 finding an Xbox 360 in a bin turned into probably the best thread ever in the adverts.ie forum

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=62984049#post62984049

Wolfe Tone

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

My old housemate got amazing things from dumpsters, full computers/monitors/keyboards, tvs, music keyboards, tents, books, clothes (brand new) etc. Can't even remember half the stuff.

You sure he didnt nick em and say "Eh I found em in a skip"

Tar.Aldarion

Yes, we went on an trip to the dumpster, it was our apartment blocks bin, it had amazing stuff day in, day out.

Fukuyama

For eight months last year I worked in Tesco - I have vowed that when I move out I'm never paying full price for food. Never.

Firstly, it sickened me how much food I was ordered to load into bags and throw into dumpsters. Tinned food. Fresh bread. Sweets. Bottles of water and coke. Biscuits. Microwave meals. The list goes on and on. If you dived into you local supermarkets dumpsters you'd find tonnes. Some are secured (particularly in urban areas) but most are not. As for spraying with bleach - I've never heard of this and doubt it's a regular effort by supermarkets if it's actually true.

The Reduced Section

Seriously. Students, single people, single income families, those out of work: It is entirely possible to make a massive chicken curry using five chicken fillets, nice sauce and all the rice in Vietnam for less than one euro. How? The reduced section.

An hour before the store closes I'd go around with my SEL gun and reduce the crap out of anything that was yet to be sold and was about to go off. 5 chicken fillets for 45c. Two trays of mince for 35c. Yoghurt for 3c. I used to get loads of eastern Europeans and old guys perhaps down on their luck, coming up to me when I was on tills with baskets full of nutritious food that'd do them for the next five days. All for around E5. Freeze the meat when you get home. Sorted.

What's more if people came up to me (and were nice about it and didnt have a sense of entitlement and treat me like crap) I'd gladly mark down things for them if it was near it's sell by date or perhaps things that were reduced but maybe needed another further reduction. And because they were there, and it was the one way I could make a positive impact in my job, I'd often price items at 3c or so.

It can also be noted that it's entirely possible to get your five a day, two hot meals and lots of protein for less than E4 per day.

When I move out I expect my cabinets to be stocked full to the point of overflowing with a weekly food bill of around 40 quid or so.

Wolfe Tone

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Yes, we went on an trip to the dumpster, it was our apartment blocks bin, it had amazing stuff day in, day out.

Would be awkward if the neighbors caught him at it!

Tar.Aldarion

People walked by all the time, I wish they would have said something to him, then again a lad that strips off to nothing, in public, just if he is asked to, good luck embarrassing him.

Solnskaya

Dudess wrote: »

Non edible stuff like equipment seems reasonable to me (although you're hardly gonna find good stuff - that tends not to get thrown out).

QUOTE]

Dudess, you would be both amazed and shocked by what gets thrown out. Anybody who works within any kind of industry knows that the best of stuff gets fecked out for various reasons at various times. Food is the least of it.

experiMental

Dean0088 wrote: »

For eight months last year I worked in Tesco - I have vowed that when I move out I'm never paying full price for food. Never.

Firstly, it sickened me how much food I was ordered to load into bags and throw into dumpsters. Tinned food. Fresh bread. Sweets. Bottles of water and coke. Biscuits. Microwave meals. The list goes on and on. If you dived into you local supermarkets dumpsters you'd find tonnes. Some are secured (particularly in urban areas) but most are not. As for spraying with bleach - I've never heard of this and doubt it's a regular effort by supermarkets if it's actually true.

The Reduced Section

Seriously. Students, single people, single income families, those out of work: It is entirely possible to make a massive chicken curry using five chicken fillets, nice sauce and all the rice in Vietnam for less than one euro. How? The reduced section.

An hour before the store closes I'd go around with my SEL gun and reduce the crap out of anything that was yet to be sold and was about to go off. 5 chicken fillets for 45c. Two trays of mince for 35c. Yoghurt for 3c. I used to get loads of eastern Europeans and old guys perhaps down on their luck, coming up to me when I was on tills with baskets full of nutritious food that'd do them for the next five days. All for around E5. Freeze the meat when you get home. Sorted.

What's more if people came up to me (and were nice about it and didnt have a sense of entitlement and treat me like crap) I'd gladly mark down things for them if it was near it's sell by date or perhaps things that were reduced but maybe needed another further reduction. And because they were there, and it was the one way I could make a positive impact in my job, I'd often price items at 3c or so.

It can also be noted that it's entirely possible to get your five a day, two hot meals and lots of protein for less than E4 per day.

When I move out I expect my cabinets to be stocked full to the point of overflowing with a weekly food bill of around 40 quid or so.

Dean, you're a saint and a scholar of making stuff cheap. Can you make all of Tesco's shops in Ireland price food down in the same way that you do?

Fukuyama

experiMental wrote: »

Dean, you're a saint and a scholar of making stuff cheap. Can you make all of Tesco's shops in Ireland price food down in the same way that you do?

Cant... I quit, I'm afraid!

On my last day though I was very leniant when entering prices on the self scans though :P

Also, throughout my entire time there I reckon I only charged for maybe 40% of the plastic bags I issued and used to give kids whole books of the 'computers for schools' tokens.... I was coooolll....

phasers

Dean0088 wrote: »

The Reduced Section

Seriously. Students, single people, single income families, those out of work: It is entirely possible to make a massive chicken curry using five chicken fillets, nice sauce and all the rice in Vietnam for less than one euro. How? The reduced section.

How come my local tesco only reduces day old cooked chickens and battered looking tins of beans?

Daegerty

phasers wrote: »

How come my local tesco only reduces day old cooked chickens and battered looking tins of beans?

The manager must be a stingey ould cnut

Oranage2

Daegerty wrote: »

The manager must be a stingey ould cnut

Things in the reduce section are usually things that the supermarket cant get a refund on by the supplier.

And haven worked in a supermarket and the person in charge of waste, a lot of good products were throw out:

- coke with a ripped label
- multi pack anything with just one item removed
- Stuff that was going out of date in 2 weeks
- tin goods with a little dint
- also a lot of jar'd good were throw out, say a case comes in and one jar smashes, instead of washing the others they'd all just be thrown out

lots lots more so Dumpster diving is grand except for it being illeagal

the groutch

Oranage2 wrote: »

lots lots more so Dumpster diving is grand except for it being illegal

which is why most people here are only talking hypothetically, and would never get involved in tresspassing & theft

Cybertron85

This is already reality for many people in Greece at the moment, something we might see over here too. They go through the rubbish in the morning and sell whatever they find on massive flea markets in the afternoon:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12204029



At the moment life over here is still quite okay for most people, but this could be the lengths we go to if life gets tougher (which it very well might, just heard we need to give the banks another 25bn! on top of the rest)

whiteonion

I don't like that we throw away so many usable items or perfectly good food. Especially when many people around the world are dying of malnutrition. On the other hand it will not help them that we throw away less stuff I suppose.

Bruthal

whiteonion wrote: »

I don't like that we throw away so many usable items or perfectly good food. Especially when many people around the world are dying of malnutrition. On the other hand it will not help them that we throw away less stuff I suppose.

Still a valid point though, madness it is.

whiteonion

robbie7730 wrote: »

Still a valid point though, madness it is.

I was raised to be frugal and not throw things away. My father sometimes get things from the local scrapyard for free because he knows people there. Here at after hours people say that you're a "rebellious" teenager because you state the fact that it's madness that we throw so much things away. Hating seeing things go to waste does not mean you're a crazy Maoist.

crossmolinalad

Oranage2 wrote: »

Things in the reduce section are usually things that the supermarket cant get a refund on by the supplier.

And haven worked in a supermarket and the person in charge of waste, a lot of good products were throw out:

- coke with a ripped label
- multi pack anything with just one item removed
- Stuff that was going out of date in 2 weeks
- tin goods with a little dint
- also a lot of jar'd good were throw out, say a case comes in and one jar smashes, instead of washing the others they'd all just be thrown out

lots lots more so Dumpster diving is grand except for it being illeagal

Things like that in Holland its all going to the food banks were some people in sad circumstances can get it for free

msg11

Wasn't this how Tesco was started , the guy would buy stuff say Tea that was bad quality for a cheap price and then pass it on cheaper, quickly caught on in his favor.

Sure back in the 'Celtic Tiger years' , I would have bought a van and I would be a rich man now. Cause the amount of copper been thrown out on sites was shocking.

bonerm

whiteonion wrote: »

Have you ever gone dumpster diving looking for food and other items that you may use? I myself have considered this to save money but I'm too afraid to get arrested?

What is your experience with dumpster diving?

I've never had to dive for food. The worst I ever did was in college I was walking by a skip full of builders masonry when I noticed on top of it were literally hundreds of class assignments just chucked in with it (presumably by some lecturer?). Each of the assignments was held together with a folder like these. Now IIRC the running rate for these plastic folders was about €1 - €1.50 and were perfectly clean and reusable. so I nicked the whole lot, threw away the paperwork and kept the folders. I never had to buy another binder for my remaining years in college and probably saved the guts of €100.

Links234

done a bit of dumpster diving and you'd be amazed what people throw out

got some fantastic clothes that way, found jeans, hoodies, tops, dresses and stuff, all absolutely perfect. even found shoes, but they didn't fit. give them a wash, they're in my regular wardrobe.

crossmolinalad

msg11 wrote: »

Sure back in the 'Celtic Tiger years' , I would have bought a van and I would be a rich man now. Cause the amount of copper been thrown out on sites was shocking.

yeahh i know that
Worked that time on building sites to clean up
Have collected buckets full of brass couplings with missing rings
U buy a ring for just 15 cents so thats what im doing now
Make them complete and sell them on ebay

Used to know the guys who did the bins in Scotch Hall in Drogheda.

They never bought a lunch. Straight down to Dunnes in the morning, where they'd get their newspapers for the day, some food and drink.

I still have a load of plates in my house from when Next threw them out. They were selling boxes that had four big plates and four smaller plates. A plate would be broken in a box, so they'd throw it out. There were lots of these. They could have sold a lot of them by just replacing the broken plates with good ones from other boxes, but they decided to throw them out. Good plates, too.

Anyway, the lads working the bins used to get MP3 players, headphones, all kinds of cables, computer accessories, etc. from Currys bins, lots of reading material from Waterstones (usually magazines. Never seen them with proper hardback books, though then again, these lads weren't exactly big readers).


One of the lads got a healthy dose of food poisoning one time, and then he swore off the food from the bins. Didn't stop the rest of them though.

Dunnes in Scotch Hall are one of the stores that'd throw disinfectant on top of the bin to stop people from taking stuff from it. Massive waste.

I remember one day I was out the back at the bins myself, and the girl from the Grocery section of Dunnes was throwing out about 60 packets of Tayto, because the expiry date was up, and I stress, soon. They hadn't actually expired.


In the drapery section, when I worked there, the stuff that was damaged or such would be left in the stock room, ready to be returned, but if the staff wanted anything, they could take it for little or nothing (though it still had to be scanned through the checkouts so the stock levels would be accurate.

Aishae

cleaning bins with bleach is just cleaning bins with bleach but throwing bleach on the stuff in the bins just to stop people taking the stuff is just doing so because they dont want them using whats in there - like being posessive of your rubbish. the only place it's going in the landfill so whats the problem? . and while it's sad and unfortunate there are people who live on the streets who rely on the contents of bins
if they want to keep rats away - vinegar is your only man. cheap. all sorts of animals hate the stuff and it doesnt adversely affect the environment (by which i mean not creating gas clouds around the bins)

Dunny

http://fanackapan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/topcat.jpg

the groutch

Deleted User wrote: »

One of the lads got a healthy dose of food poisoning one time, and then he swore off the food from the bins. Didn't stop the rest of them though.

Dunnes in Scotch Hall are one of the stores that'd throw disinfectant on top of the bin to stop people from taking stuff from it. Massive waste.

bit of a contradiction there

Tonyandthewhale

I got a free bike out of a dumpster once, a raleigh burner bmx, sadly not one of the original 80's ones that people are willing to pay money for but a ****ty modern knock off. Still works fine though.

Aishae

Tonyandthewhale wrote: »

I got a free bike out of a dumpster once, a raleigh burner bmx, sadly not one of the original 80's ones that people are willing to pay money for but a ****ty modern knock off. Still works fine though.

oh yeah!! i forgot dad brought home a bike for me when i was a kid - he saw it on top of a skip. it wasnt a 'sexy' bike, the paint was almost gone. it was a racer bike. but the wheels, the chain etc were grand. so he just sanded down the paint. got a few years outta that before i stopped using bikes. you can get great stuff if youre willing ti restore it or give it a bit of tlc. i got some picture frames and paint canvasses a few years ago. painted over them etc. reclaiming. if id bought a new canvas that size inb the shop it'd be nigh on 40 euro. nice freebie!

BaconZombie

I used to Dumpster Dive when I was younger and grow up beside an Industrial estate.

I only went after electronics and info, never for food.
Over the years I got a sh1t load of full pcs {data still on them}, parts, bags/boxes of electronic parts, 1,000s of AA batteries from disposable camera, etc.

You will fast learn which skips to goto and which to avoid.
A few I know would leave all the good stuff beside the skip.