Skip Diving

I know people who go to charity shops buy up a load of baby stuff and home furnishings, and stick them all up on adverts. She says she finds people are quicker to buy from Adverts then they would to go into a charity shop.

But only last year I got perfect fence panels from a skip, and they replaced mine that needed replacing. As the saying goes "1 mans trash, is another mans treasure"

Edit: I did ask the home owner before I took the panels, and they told me I was welcome to any of it, freed up space in the skip for them.

With data protection, recycling and WEEE regs these days, I find that skips tend to be full of stuff that is of no interest to me. Actual rubbish, rubble, filthy crap.

Not like the 1990s when I got a lot of working computer equipment out of skips in my college. Floppy disks too with loads of files on them.

Even back then you had to discreet enough about rooting through skips and would be shooed by security guards. Now, I'd say businesses and institutions are very wary about people doing this for various reasons including being sued if the "skipper" injures himself.

Travellers do this all the time, not for me though I think it’s weird

There's people that go around collecting metal from skips, sometimes theres pcs but they are usually old pentium 4 pcs. If you can re use old PVC windows or bricks you are just recycling and that's good for the environment offices throw away perfectly good chairs or tables in skips when they are moving to a new location

So how do you know you want something in a skip, do you go and ask before looking ? or do you root around and then go ask ? or do you drive around looking at the top lair hoping you 'll see something you like ? i find it very weird and wouldn't take kindly to someone rooting through my private waste, if they asked first it would depend on the person asking but i still find it weird.

Recently I passed by a skip in front of a B&B and had a peek. Fished out a bale arm crate that was in perfect condition, I wasn't bother rummaging into the inner depths of it for anything else. Have gotten a bamboo table that only needed new wrapping cane from another skip (with permission). I know someone who's a landlord and people often leave stuff behind that still usable - some pots left from a chef, a rocking horse that only needed some small repair work, cleaned and dropped off to a charity shop which the staff seemed to appreciate as they're always inundated with clothes. Have also used Freecycle and Adverts. I'd be useless with any sort of tech, I would just try to ensure that I bought something that wouldn't become obsolete in a short time if I could help it.

I got this "waste not, want not" (or however that expression goes) from the mother, who got it in turn from her own mother probably from the rationing period during The Emergency/WW2 in Ireland. There was a definite stigma against charity shops a decade or 2 ago, as the mother was initially against me getting clothes from those shops, but this general attitude seems to have changed over the years when she saw that I got good quality clothes from them like a Blarney Woolen Mills jumper. There are still some people who wouldn't dare go into one. I have a somewhat minimalist view re possessions and hate clutter, probably from the experience of having clear out several bags of clothes from sisters who bought clothes on impulse after they were living abroad and didn't want the clothes.

It's popular in Germany for people to leave out furniture, books, etc. with the sign "zu verschenken" on it outside their homes. Just make sure not to have "zu giften" on it 😁 If you did that here people would think it's rubbish, plus there's the weather.

So what i hear is you are not wasteful, like to recycle, stop rubbish going to landfill and save money at the same time.

You colleague probably likes fast fashion, throws out perfectly good items etc...

No question here of who is the better person

There was a large skip outside a local pub about 18 months ago, during the lockdown.

In passing, I happened to notice a lovely wooden box on the top of the pile that seemed both functional and ornate. Great for storing stuff in, and it looked nice, and I thought it was shameful to thrown it into landfill.

I was in the process of rescuing the box when one of the builders, who hadn't been around when I taking it out of the skip, appeared. I told him what I was doing and asked him if it was ok.

He said that he didn't have a problem himself, but that he felt he had to tell me that the renovation work which he was involved in carrying out, were as a result of the drains in the pub badly malfunctioning and causing a lot of damage during the lockdown. And that and that the box I was holding had been soiled as a result. 🤮🤮🤮🤮

Needless to say the cox went straight back on the skip. I think I smashed it first to stop any other person making the same mistake.

I worked for a biotech company up in Bray a while back and there was some kind of design or advertising company next door that shared an alley with us, their skips were always full of random styrofoam/modeling clay and wood shapes and that kind of thing, got a load of tools out of them once but it was mostly junk but one day I was going home and had a look in, couldnt believe my eyes, a load of toy tractors, combine harvesters, balers, JCBs, farm animals, hay sheds etc, not cheap stuff either it was all Britains branded and some other German stuff I used to drool over in toy catalogues as a child, ran back for a bin bag and filled it up and gave it to my nephews, they're still playing with it years later.

come on now, upload the bank receipt or get the hell outta ere!