apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I used to have roommates that dumpster dived. One was a even a lawyer! We had a special drawer in the fridge for their goods. Personally, I'd rather encourage stores to be zero waste than get my goods from a trash can. I wouldn't dive into my own trash let alone a some one else's! Yuck!

Dumpster diving is now a main driver in the Freegan movement, which most recently was profiled on Oprah. So, now it's hit the mainstream again with Huffington.

I did a post on this, and the main thing I can come up with is that this behavior seems to be created by our gross over-consumption. But, I'm completely with you: I could never do this myself!

I work for a major grocery store, and I'm on trash duty a lot. I'd never dive in our dumpster. There's a lot of broken glass, rotten meat and other unsavory things.

the thing about dumpster diving is that....although it may look perfectly fine. you don't really know what happened to it. there may be a non-superficial reason that it was thrown away.

also, i had a friend that dumpster dived and he got SCABIES. so that killed it for me.

Half of my apartment came from tree lawns! I collect household items (bookcases, storage bins, etc). I always leave any cloth items like rugs or pillows because of bedbugs and never open up garbage bags.

My sophomore year in College, every student got a free copy of a visiting professor's how-to-succeed-in-life book. Tons of copies ended up in the free box at the end of the year. My friend Ro collected the discarded books and sold them on Amazon. $15 per copy x 21 copies. Yes.

I recently moved to Germany, where Dumpster Diving is almost an art form. Actually 4x per year they have a "Sperrmüll" collection, where everyone placed large or unwanted furniture, appliances and just about everything else you can imagine on the curb for collection.

Last week, my boyfriend and I collected a closet, 4 matching chairs, an expandable table, a park bench, a bookcase, a shelf unit, a cool 50s-era magazine rack, a 70s pendant lamp, several planter boxes and lots of terra cotta pots. Everything was in excellent condition, albeit a bit dirty. A good washing-down with Frosch (a green-friendly brand) cleaner and all was good to go.

Thanks to "Sperrmüll" day, we now have a full house!

The best diving is at the end of the school year in any college dorm areas. The dumpsters are overflowing with coffee makers, all the christmas gifts that were never used, dishes, chairs and of course, bongs, that won't be going home over the summer.
My friends and I would take our trucks and fill them up, then hold a garage sale and make a few hundred dollars. This was 18 years ago and the consumer/ disposable culture is so much more prevalent now, I'm sure there are even better scores to be had.