As a kid I kept bringing stuff home from other people's trash when I walked home from Elementary school in San Jose. My Dad thought he'd "cured" it by telling me I had to ask and get permission from the people who put the garbage out before I could take it. The next week I brought several things home and he didn't believe that I had asked, so we went back to the closest place that I got a big floor standing radio from and he went and asked if I had indeed asked, the whole time thinking I couldn't have been brave enough to ask a stranger to take their trash. He never doubted me again ... and I've had some GREAT hauls. The best for me was a 1200 watt SVT bass amp that I fixed for around $5 in parts. I still have it to this day.
I have given stuff like that away when I simply didn’t have the space for it: bunch of Hi-Fi components and a pair of huge speakers. I now have more than enough space, but I don’t regret giving stuff away. And when I told a friend that I had to get rid of the large speakers, he gave me a pair of studio monitors he wasn’t using anymore - I still have those 20 years later.
@@mm9773 I got a studio monitor amp for nothing and suddenly needed to re-setup my hi-fi from the past, went around searching out super deals on a turntable and floor standing speakers, and as soon as I got them my neighbor throws away his whole hi-fi system :) I got rid of a bunch of speakers to friends to get them hooked too :)
im glad adam talked about this. because i was a bit ashamed, but to keep budgets low/0 for my work i frequently scan trash piles and occasionally peek in dumpsters for set dressings, replaced lighting fixtures ect and so fourth. its nice to know im closer to normal.
I can't tell you how many times I've watched you answer questions and I get to pick up on a piece of advice or wisdom that I internalize and plan to carry with me for the rest of my life. It's also immensely satisfying when it aligns with my currently accumulated wisdom and experience. It builds on it and reinforces it, increasing my confidence, self-esteem, and life outlook. Thank you so much Adam, and the endlessly enlightening and entertaining way you imbue your kindness and wisdom onto all who happily listen.
I've found some insane stuff in dumpsters over the years. A. 10x binocular laboratory microscopes. MSRP on them was $8000 each. 1x worked fine. 2x needed new lights($10 each). The other 7x had enough working parts to make 4x completely working units. I donated them to a school science program and sold the spare parts from the 3 broken ones to cover costs. B. "Dozens and dozens" of laptops. On more than one occasion I have found stacks of laptops in office park dumpsters. They are usually old enough to be written off, but new enough to be TOTALLY useful if they work. It is pretty common to find 20x broken ones that can be taken apart and made into 5-10x working ones. It takes time, which is why IT departments just write them off and chuck them. Broken screens are pretty common. Replacements can be had. I have donated probably 100+ 1-2 generation old laptops to various school/STEM programs over the years. I had a few smaller batches with expensive screens, but perfectly working motherboards that I mounted like blades in a single 6U server rack and used as a cluster for years. C. 2x Aluminum fishing boats. Yes. 2 boats. Someone took the time to put them INTO the dumpster. Not leaning against it. Not on a trailer next to it. INTO it, so I wasn't worried that it was theft. 1 was undamaged. The other had 2 minor leaks. I gave them both away, the leaky one went to someone who wanted a boat and had aluminum welding equipment. D. 16'x24' portable garage. Missing 1 tube from the frame. Several tears in one of the side panels. Missing one end panel. Roof, 1x side panel, and 1x end panel were in great shape. The missing tube from the frame was just a straight piece. I found a slightly smaller piece of similar tubing in a different dumpster a month later and made a shim so it fit nicely. I donated it to a Boy Scout troop who used it as a "Chow Tent" for at least a decade. Not having 1 side and 1 end turned out to be a "feature" for them. E. 6x rows of airline 'economy' seating. That's 3 seats each. I was renting a house with several people at the time and had a very weirdly shaped living room that I had already bought a projector for to turn into a theater. The room was 12'x22' super long and skinny. I built tiered seating with a 2' tall platform in the back of the room, and a 1' platform in the middle. 6x seats per platform. It was hilarious. However, airline seats SUCK. We had them for less than a month (4x Friday movie nights) before we ditched them and got 3x big couches from a furniture liquidator. We kept the tiered seating. F. 64 folding chairs. Also 4x rolling racks that held 16x chairs each. I almost didn't take these because they were beside the dumpster on the carts instead of IN the dumpster. But the dumpster was at the far end of a parking lot away from any buildings. They had to be hauled like 300' to be put there. I took 8 in my car. Then I spent a few hours trying to figure out where the hell I could keep the rest, and how to get them there. The 4x carts took up a whole parking space. It was a LOT of chairs. They were old but serviceable. I have no idea why they were in that parking lot, because the businesses there were warehouses or parts manufacturing. Anyway, I remember some going to a campground. I don't remember where the rest ended up, but I know I had STACKS of folding chairs in a garage for years... G. A pumped fiber laser. It took power through a custom connector so I couldn't power it up if I'd wanted to. After finding the info on it, and seeing it was rated at 1.4kw, id did NOT want to. Okay I did, but it would have been stupid to do so. And I couldn't anyway. I ended up giving it to a friend-of-a-friend-of-an-acquaintance about 8 months later. This guy had worked with high-power lasers. After a few weeks he told me it was missing the power supply unit, and he suspected there was some damage to one of the fiber stages. He figured it would cost $10k-$25k to repair, and they were still being sold. The company that made them didn't publish prices. You called them and told them what you need and they quoted you for it. It was one of those "If you need one you have one" kinda situations." so there was basically zero demand for a used unit at any price. He figured it probably cost about $300k-$500k new though. I told him he could part it out or do whatever else he wanted with it. H. Some dude's wallet. ~$800 in cash in it. It also had his drivers license and a bunch of credit cards. I drove out to his house the next day, which was about 40 minutes away, to give it back to him (found it at 2am). Dude was a weapons grade PoS. He called the cops, despite me leaving the cash/cards in it. I spent the afternoon at some podunk sheriff's office trying to explain why I HADN'T kept the cash... I have also a bunch of stuff that shouldn't have ever been in dumpsters... Boxes of prescription medication. Like, a dozen bottles with 5k pills in each one. Not some individual dose packaging. Called the cops on this one. Hazardous chemicals. I'm lucky I wore heavy duty gloves because on one occasion I found several large bottles labeled Hydrofluoric acid at the bottom of a dumpster. Leaking bottles. That was an immediate 911 call. Luckily I wasn't exposed, but hazmat sprayed me with something at the scene and gave me a ride to the hospital just in case. Lots of racoons/snakes/possums/etc one time it was bats. I've also run into 2 very strange dumpsters. One was full of concrete. Not bags. Solid concrete. Someone must have opened it up and dumped tons of wet concrete in there and it had cured. I have no idea if there had been anything inside of it at the time, or if it was empty. The other one was about 2/3 full of jelly beans. Not bags of jelly beans. Several cubic meters of assorted lose jelly beans. No, it was not in the parking lot of a candy factory/distributer/etc. I still haven't figured that one out.
@@matthewhall5571 fair. I knew of a dairy that gave waste yogurt to a mink farm. Yes. Mink. As in the weasel. No, I don’t know what would inspire someone to farm mink, apart from their pelts, but somebody did 🤷
My best dumpster find was about 4-5 years ago. A local business was switching over to LED lighting from low draw fluorescents. The old fixtures were sitting in a dumpster outside. Took 2 trips, but I got all the good ones. I now have 10 of the units in my garage shop. I have really good lighting that draws less power than the random mixture of the older style units I had before. Now the lights don't dim when I first turn on my tablesaw.
The greatest score my dad made was a full cabinet of a complete set of microfilm-slides containing the entire maintenance manual to the Fokker-50 aircraft. It was sitting in the pile of getting-thrown-away when Fokker Aircraft was going bankrupt and he thought to himself "are you nuts?!" He sold a lot of manuals to companies operating that aircraft in the decades after.
My best dumpster dive was at the end of the school year when I saw our teacher toss out boxes of magic the gathering decks into the bin under his desk. He had confiscated them middle of the year during a tourney we held at the school. The wait until he left felt like forever. I did return the decks to their respective owners, and got my blue flying weenie deck back.
Ah, I don't miss school. Not one bit. I went to a religious school, and the math teacher always sipped from this mug. Constantly. I remember one of my friends snuck a drink from it and it was 75% rum.
I have books from my old school, they were rescued from being burnt as the schools idiotic way of getting rid of old tatty books was to Fahrenheit 451 them.
I always thought that was really shoddy of teachers not to return confisicated stuff at the end of the year. I had a Galaxy sci-fi mag with a half read story taken away. It would be decades until I found that story online and finished it.
I used to dumpster dive because I was poor & couldn't afford things like furniture. Found most of what I owned that way. One of my coolest scores as a drummer was a fine Dumbek with a 14" head that someone had burned out (it was a synthetic head, so it had somehow melted) that they'd thrown out instead of replacing the head. All I had to do was replace the head & I had a fully functional drum worth hundreds of dollars.
The irony of stealing an idea to get away with stealing. Well, I'M not going to let you get away with it. ...Actually, I am, cause that FREE sign is a great idea.
My best find was actually from hard rubbish collection, but it was a beautiful La Marzocco coffee machine. It was sitting on the side of the road with a leaky group head seal. For a 30 cent part (and $7.00 shipping) I scored a several thousand dollar coffee machine! Its been nearly 5 years and I still have it! The things rich people throw out are astounding!
Nothing surprises me anymore. They probably didn’t want to futz around with a machine where parts are under pressure and couldn’t find anyone who would repair a coffee machine, and they had their eye on an upgrade anyway, and they thought nobody would buy a “broken” machine, and and and. I can see it with my dad: the idea of trading old stuff is something that doesn’t enter his mind at all - he always rolls his eyes when I come home with used furniture, even though he can see the value. From his point of view it’s something that “successful” people just don’t do.
@@mm9773 It's ridiculous! I see myself as quite succesful, owing in part to being thrifty and willing to sacrifice buying new stuff all the time. If I'm lucky this coffee machine will last me well into old age. Buy once, cry once is the motto my parents taught me, and they also taught me how to fix almost anything. I don't think the world would be in such a pickle if more people took pride in making, keeping, and restoring quality equipment!
When I was a kid I found a really fancy expensive set of silverware in a dumpster. The entire set was just trown out because it was missing onw knife! My parents put it aside for me. Some 40 years later I still use it. I never have more than 3 guests over for dinner so it doesn't matter that I only have 5 knives. I'm still always on the lookout for a 6th at thrift stores etc. though. Who knows Maybe one of these days I'll get lucky again
It just dawned on me after all these years that the set might have been thrown out to get rid of evidence! I feel a bit creeped out right now actually. Because perhaps the missing knife was used in a crime and the perpetrator was just trying to sever their connection to it. In case the knife was ever found! Think about it... It's actual silver and that never made sense to me. Until now maybe. What an unsettling thought
@@LilSirAxolotl Knife blades can shatter when you drop them, a missing knife is not uncommon. Of course the question remains why someone would then take the whole set to a dumpster and throw it away. Creepy, but actually an even better story.
Dumpster driving was my childhood obsession, and I scored so much cool stuff. I don't go out scavenging anymore, but my workplace throws out a lot of chunks of 6061 aluminum and mcmaster carr hardware, hardened screws, springs, dowel pins, etc., and I save almost all of it.
> workplace throws out a lot of ... mcmaster carr hardware Dude. Seriously. Considering the price and quality of that stuff... someone needs a talkin' to at work.
@@GeneCash I should clarify, the bits that get thrown out is mostly little stuff that gets dropped and swept up later, and forgotten leftovers from projects, all of them outside their labelled packages. It would take too much paid time for someone to identify and sort it. But me, I love fasteners, and sitting at home at my workbench with calipers and thread gauges is therapeutic!
You're right about NYC. My college roomies and I practically furnished our entire apartment with stuff left on the street. If a new roommate came in with better stuff, we'd put the old things on the curb, hang out our window, and see how long it took for someone else to grab it. Fun times. The best find among us all. One roomate and her friend were out walking and found a small vanity covered in tramp art by the trash. They dragged and pushed it from blocks away and carried it upstairs into our fifth floor walk up. Beautiful piece. She still has it.
Adam’s ability to mentally catalogue and most importantly retrieve as needed, his vast experience, is a truly remarkable thing. And being able to weave those experiences and the lessons learned into his dialogue lends great depth to his explanations and advice. He is simply an incredible teacher. The wise one you sit around the village fire to hear, to learn about life.
The "Free" sign is genius 🤣 Best thing I found was after a company that made... pumps or motors or something. They closed the office down and cleared out - I got loads of boxes of neodymium magnets.
@@Telukin 😳 Nice! I have used small neodymium magnets in my EMF Emitter builds before; handy little items! Your lucky score sounds like your magnets were a tad bigger though… 😄 👍
Any hard drive that comes my way that is dead or too outdated for me to bother trying to sell, I salvage the neodymium magnets out of. Just about every one will have 2. Desktop drives (3.5in HDD) have two nice sized ones. Laptop drives (2.5in HDD) are usually two, sometimes one, but the magnet is WAY way thinner. They're often affixed to a chunk of metal with holes in it, so that makes it easy to repurpose. At my cabin, I have one attached at the end of an old garden rake handle by some fishing line, not long but just so that it can move around. If anyone drops anything in the river it comes in clutch for retrieving! _(glacier fed, so it's ice cold water that you don't wanna go in, and also teal so joy can't see the bottom either way)_ And since they're *_so friggen strong,_* even most stainless steel is still ferrous enough that it'll pick it up. (ie fillet knives)
As a kid in the 1950's, trash day was my favorite day of the week. As a grownup, I have found GREAT stuff in dumpsters over the years. Big apartment/condominium complexes are good - someone is always moving.
You know those plastic poly carts? Find a big hill. Lay the poly cart down, where the wheels are on still on the ground, open end pointing downhill. Sit on the cart with your weight directly above the wheels. Grab the handle right in front of you. Hang on and have 911 ready. Drag either foot to steer, both to brake.
Kind of 'reverse dumpster diving': I was stripping out a kitchen, putting all the panels in a skip (dumpster) to take to the tip. Guy comes along in a car and says 'Are you slinging those?' 'yup.' 'Don't wreck them I'll give you X£ for them intact.' He came back later with a small truck and took the lot. The airplane food cvontainer story reminded me: 25 years ago at work someone brought in some bank cashier(teller) trolleys to get rid of on one of our winter bonfires. Lovely, solid things about 10 ply plywood, with 3 lockable drawers, smooth as silk bearings and steerable nylon wheels. Still used for tool storage.
I once worked a Summer job at a dump, or rather a collection point for old batteries, fluorescent tubes and stuff like that - virtually all of the equipment, tools, shelving etc. was put together from scrap, leftovers and demolition jobs. The radio was exclusively powered with batteries that people had brought in.
Trash collection day or "Spring Cleaning" in our area has always been a favored pastime of mine to just wander around and find goodies. My current porch furniture and tables inside my house all came from those piles. Have also found guitar cases and equipment.
The story you tell, starting at 8:28, about what all the working artists had in common was hugely helpful to me. To divide things into "what I was and wasn't willing to become obsessed with" is exactly the insight I needed right now. Thanks for sharing it.
my grandpa owned a lawncare business. he bought a new mower and put the old one by the road, nobody took it for over a week, the city was going to charge him to haul it away. he put a sign on it that said "$50". someone stole it that night
What I've bagged just before landing in the dumpster. 22 years ago, a professional video projector. I loved video equipment and this was the mother-lode. I can't recall how many input and outputs it had but there were some I'd never heard of or seen since. It was being dumped because the globe wasn't working and they were around $600. I suspected the issue but didn't say anything. First thing was looking up the availability of a new globe. I can get one, but yeah, it'll cost a whole bag of fresh clams. When I got it home I carefully opened the case and with cotton gloves, I turned the globe, tightening it a smidgen. Switched it on and voila. A lovely large blue screen on my wall. I plugged my PS1 in and wow. BIG.
My best score was in the early 80/s I was working for an electronic components wholesaler and I was serving a customer from a telecommunications company, and in the early days of personal computers. He and I got on the subject of printers, and they were getting rid of some older equipment that could be used as printers, he asked if I or any others in our staff was interested and I said yes. About an hour later a five ton truck pulls up and they start unloading 15 complete ASR-33 Teletype machines with keyboards and paper tape options. I hooked it up as a serial printer, my girlfriend at the time was not happy as we lived in a one bedroom apartment along with my collection of antique radios of various sizes, it was just a little crowded lol.
When I was in middle school living in San Jose, we used to go dumpster diving at night in high tech office parks, including one with Activision. We came home with huge boxes of Atari 2600 games which was an amazing score for that time.
There used to be a dump at Kansas University in the 80's that was DREAMY! It was jam packed with old tech the engineering, computer & med schools disposed of for tax purposes. Security was fairly lax and some of the guys there would let us grab stuff, but most would just ask us to leave. It was gone before I graduated.
Okay, not technically dumpster diving, but the town my dad lived in many years ago had a section of the town dump for scrap wood, etc. where contractors could dump their scrap wood. People could then go and pick through it. We had a great time because there was always some good stuff like mahogany, maple, oak, or cherry. My brother and I both made bookcases from boards we found. I still have my bookcase after 25 years.
At our local recycling center you’ll get into trouble if you try to take stuff, but I have to say people seem to have caught on: I always have a peek into the scrap wood container, and usually all I see is IKEA particle board and cheap pine.
@@mm9773 My retired brother in law lives on Long Island NY in an area popular for summer rentals by NYC dwellers. They'll rent a place for a month or 2, and the family stays there and enjoys the beaches, etc., while the bread winner may only spend the weekends. This area doesn't have local trash pickup, but rather a transfer station with large dumpsters that get emptied weekly. The locals and some summer visitors take their own trash there, while others might have their housekeepers do it. The tenants will often buy what ever they think they need to entertain themselves, but at the end of the lease it can't stay in the rental. Since the transfer station also has areas for recycle and reusable items, at the end of the summer you can find sporting goods, flat screen TV's, gaming systems, BBQ's, beach furniture, etc. that is all only a few months old and free for the taking. My brother in law often collects stuff for his annual yard sale, and usually makes a good chunk of change.
Agreed with NYC having the best dumpster diving, and the best part is that it's all on the sidewalk and not even in a dumpster! I moved here with minimal things and I outfitted my entire apartment within a week or two just by walking around. My favorite scores were a 4'x3' painting of an anthropomorphized zebra that currently hangs above my bed, a full set of free weights, a crt for retro gaming, an all-gender bathroom sign from a restaurant that I put on my bathroom door at home, and a set of nice clay carving tools.
The fact that someone as successful as Adam Savage has dumpster dived, and is now willing to openly talk about it - including even getting pulled over by the police - just shows how incredibly human Adam is. And it makes me feel better about being, simply human, also. None of us are perfect, we are all in this together ❤
Failing then suceeding is absolutely the -heart- of good software QA. Finding out -exact- steps the reproduce the problem is the best start to figuring the problem.
I’m not a maker, but this reminds me of being a poor grad student, looking forward to the equivalent of trash days to pick up fixable furnitures, appliances, even a 13” black and white tv.
The best dumpster diving in the 80s for me was in Elmsford NY, Adam's back yard. I was living/working in Tarrytown at the time. The industrial park there had a lot of new electronics firms. Their dumpsters always had lots of fully populated circuit boards. Lots of logic chips, transistors and other components to salvage. Stuff I didn't need I would take to the local hamfest and they would sell like hot cakes. Good times!😂
9:00 when you discussed becoming obsessed with what your work is / what you're working on, I can tell you it's 100% true.. even in common jobs... I was assigned to work security at a semiconductor manufacturing plant, and while everyone else was content to mess around on their phones while they weren't busy, I was asking questions on how the equipment functioned to the techs and emergency response team who saw the machines every day ... This helped me gain a better understanding of what was wrong with the unit when someone called in a leak report on it, and what specific questions I could also ask past the basic general area questions... Then when I got assigned to a data center I got to know that equipment as well, and could more thoroughly explain an issue prior to on-scene arrival of the OPS team who took the unit out of service and made repairs... They really appreciated the extra dedication to learning the equipment so they could prioritize the response over other downed equipment and gauge the severity and impact .. it also just showed them an increase in level of dedication and attention to detail and gained me more rep/standing in reliability and dependability... I always attempted to pass all the info on to my new-hires so we could all match a quality standard higher than normal... But some could care less and be satisfied with bare-minimum..
As a kid we had this "Sperrmülltage" here in Germany too and it was like Christmas to look through the stuff people threw out. The most memorable thing was when i brought home a crutch and my mom freaked out why i would bring it even home. Later that day she missed a step on the staircase and sprained her angle. After that my wrongdoing was that i didn't bring a second one home 😂
I LOVE DUMPSTER DIVING! always have since I got my licence. We call it hard-rubbish in Australia but no verbal form. We have another word that is verbal: scabbing. So I guess it's hard-rubbish scabbing.
Your advice regarding obsession really spoke to me. I've spent a lot of time feeling guilty for "wasting time" getting obsessed with minutiae, but I'm starting to see that hyperfocus as a gift.
My worst experience dumpster diving was when i was 18 and found a roll of metal pool surround literally on the curb up to the road; i thought "score! That would be perfect for making barriers for playing paintball!" So i loaded it into my junky 91 corsica and went home. The next day a cop came to my house and said it wasn't trash and the owners wanted it back. So they took the time to peek out their window and write down my license plate numbers, but couldn't be bothered to yell out and say "that pile of broken pool junk that's literally on the curb isn't trash". The cop had such a bad attitude too. Looked right down his nose and said "who picks through someone else's trash anyway"
My town is very small (fewer than 250 people) and "spring clean up" week, the city put out roll-off dumpsters for everyone in the city to use. I got a LOT of good stuff out of there, including new 24' sticks of angle steel! One year, my brother and I pulled over two tons of old appliances, mowers, and metal scrap and hauled it in for scrap. Recycling and making cash at the same time. :D
Love dumpsters. Got all my garage cabinets, garage countertops, some of the big wide file cabinets (great garage storage), a perfectly good shop vac (just needed the switch cleaned, even had all the hose and attachments inside), perfectly good lawnmower tires, a brand new K&N cone air filter (sold it for $40), the list goes on and on.
A couple of my better D.D. Scores, TWO Pioneer rack-mountable reel to reel 1/4 track tape players, a 12-volt railroad crossing bell, and a genuine Zero Halliburton suitcase.
Another great video! Can't wait to get a membership again and see this live again! Also, 3D printing is a lot of trial and error at first, nobody gets a perfect print as soon as they get a printer. Anyone reading this/member who asked the question: don't let it discourage you! You can and will get it right eventually!
I thought, I want to watch something fun, something comfortable; I think a lot of us need that today. Adam Savage. Always fun, comfortable, compassionate, and full of passion. I don't think I speak for myself when I feel like he's an old friend, and listening. Today, though, this episode, talking about replicating a mistake so you know what went wrong, seems like a very timely message. Thank you Adam
I grew up in the 1970s in Toronto, right on the edge of an industrial district. Me and my nerd friends lived in heaven :) A large laboratory equipment distributor. Zenith and Sunbeam both had factories there. There was a massive graveyard of commercial refrigerators. A company called "Radio Speakers of Canada", and many many others. Oh yeah, a commercial bakery with a really mean guard dog :(
I can't say I've gone dumpers diving, but I always like to keep an eye out in my neighborhood when I go around because you can always find something I've found some parts I've needed, vintage holiday decorations, wood, old tools that just needed a little tinkering & probably some of the coolest things I have found were a slightly dirty PS1 with a small bag of random games (a few PS1, some X-Box 360 & a stack of manuals) & a Dreamcast that worked after a quick teardown & clean! (Also, that free sign is just the best idea 😂)
I love the free sign story. Mine was visiting our kids in Melbourne here in Australia and somebody had moved out and left a pile of stuff for collection on hard rubbish day. There was a black plastic cash register sitting on the pile so I decided it might be fun to pull it apart. Anyways, of course I opened the draw and it was empty but when I finally worked out how to remove the draw bingo! $140 in notes was under the draw. I think the best part was telling our daughter and son in law as they were used to me roaming the streets when visiting and would roll their eyes at me. Not this time.😂
In the early 70’s I was a kid living in Port Canaveral, Florida and on occasion would see interesting piles of stuff at the apartment building across the street. This was at the end of the Apollo Program so I acquired some decent Mission Manuals from those “Trash Piles” from workers who were leaving the area when let go who then moved on to other areas like California.
I have a WW2 Japanese pineapple grenade I found curb shopping, in the same haul was a Snap On air hammer in the box, it might have been used twice. Still have both to this day.
"Replicating the failure" is a huge part of my job as a programmer. My workplace requires test evidence on every ticket, enhancement, and defect, so I spend a lot of time just figuring out how to make something break. And just because its software doesn't mean its always quick iteration times. Some stuff we do can take hours to test once.
As a serious amateur blacksmith, I’m always looking for anything that I can repurpose as either raw material or tools. One of the best things you can do in this category is to make friends with the scrap metal collectors in your area, who make a living gathering up metal trash and taking it to sell at the scrapyard. If you’re willing to pay a premium over scrap price, you can get some great material for less than what you’d pay to the metal supplier.
My greatest find is probably a ~1960s F. Dick 260mm slicing knife in carbon steel, which I sharpened and use to cut out roasts, love it! Also found a Swedish made paper basket made out of Teak, also from the 60s. Found some newer Wüsthof and Zwilling knives and some other unknown but still quality knives, bunch of different tools, old Danish made hammers from DSI (Danish Steel Industry, stopped production around year 2000), one of the ground keepers in my area even had some DSI hammers that I would say most likely are from before the 60s, wooden planes with quality Swedish Eskilstuna irons and other Eskilstuna tools (Eskilstuna chisels pretty much have legendary status) And a lot more. One of the grounds keepers in my area whom is also a good friend also collects around the area and gives me stuff he knows I want.
My father in law was a computer programmer working on military aircraft systems which went wrong more often than those in charge would like us to know. Pilots would return with tales of systems not working as they were expected to and he had to address this. He said that 99% of his job was replicating failure. Once he knew what was going wrong he generally had an immediate answer. Looked at another way, computers do exactly what we tell them to do. The challenge is understanding what exactly we have told them to do. Working that out teaches us how to refine our instructions.
Damn good idea on the sign thing. My wife hates my dumpster diving/roadside picking even though she benefits from it... So far the best picks for me are tvs and a riding lawnmower. I still use the riding lawnmower 6 years later.
That's a good idea to replicate your failures. You won't know what is really failing. If you replicate it, then you could solve that failure even better instead of tinkering with 5 or 10 other things that might have helped but not in the long run. That's a pretty good advice. That's the only way to fix it properly to know what is really failing or not working right or etc. Because if you do too many fixing what you think isn't working right? You're just kind of putting a Band-Aid on it till of that failure actually fails permanently. Although on certain things you might want to be cautious. Just trying to replicate that failure or whatever that's not working might be the last straw of that part or piece or software hardware LOL. And it really might stop working LOL but that's the Gamble LOL
I've only done this once, but someone took me dumpster diving at the Stanford dorms around graduation time, and... suffice it to say we got some stuff that I was happy to have gotten. :)
When I was a kid we found a nearly mint, fully functional Thule roof box in the dumpster outside our house in the Persidio. This was over 20 years ago and it is still in use to this day.
One time in my youth living in a little town called Worland, Wyoming I went behind a Radio Shack looking in their dumpster, it was empty but at the bottom was a fresh booklet of $20 foodstamp notes totaling $400.
I've been a dumpster diver since I was a kid, fixed a 1940's radio my dad had by scavenging old tube TV's in the 80's. I still look through Kijiji's free stuff everyday for treasure. Picking up a beautiful writing desk today for free.
I thought I was so clever figuring out the industrial park dumpster gold mine. I thought I was the only one. My town also has an electronics recycling dumpster that I visit multiple times a week. Some of my favorite finds were high end projectors and various pro audio equipment, crazy powerful amps and stuff.
I was a young lad in the 90’s and I would dumber dive a lot of places but my favorite was Hastings and estate sale throw a ways. I have found some very very unique things!
Some of my best dumpster dives weren't in the dumpster. People like me put anything that they think someone might want next to the dumpster. Like in the area that an apartment building often has that is fenced off for big items like mattresses and couches. For example, when I'm doing a demolition job, I put all the steel next to the big construction waste dumpster for the scrap metal guys to pick up.
The local university had a department that was in charge of getting rid of stuff. It was kind of like dumpster diving. Things like iMacs would be priced close to Ebay but things they didn't know or were kind of broken were dirt cheap. I got a two year old managed switch for $3 and a very nice belt sander with wonky trigger for $20. The huge steals were when a department were getting rid of one year old towers with i7's for dirt cheap prices. "They decided to go with laptops." They were priced to move. The CPU alone was worth 2x what they were charging. They closed it for Covid.
I pulled up at a place that I worked one evening and parked on the far side of the dumpster to show a friend my office space. My headlights illuminated a plastic wrapped something behind the dumpster and a corner of the plastic wrapping was torn open. I stopped the vehicle and threw it in park and jumped out....my friend was baffled, but in that corner I recognized a massage table...plush, same color, make and model as my first one, but a different year, and it was in mint condition. I don't know who threw out an $800 Oakworks massage table, but I'm still 100% happy with it today. My poor friend thought I had lost my marbles until I explained.
So far, the best thing I've found in the trash is an entire lawn equipment style engine. It runs great. Got it directly from the pile at the municipal trash facility while I was there dropping of my own garbage from some renovation work. Still haven't found a proper use for it, but... I'm sure it'll be handy one day.
I’ve found some good stuff on college campuses on the last day of the semester. Students living in the dorms can rarely take all their stuff back home with them and the ones who are flying home often leave their TVs and large electronics which are typically only a few years old.
my siblings and I used to be all excited when my father announced he was going to the dump. After closing time tho. we came home with the wierdest stuff! you name it. The big trash day too, we would drive around with dad and again, we were thrilled.
I have a belt, I call the 'Dead Man's Belt' I was working cleaning jobs 20 odd years ago and the company gave us uniforms none of which fit, I was in desperate need of a belt and saw one being thrown out as 'locker trash' in the factory I was cleaning, I asked and the guys laughing said that the person who had died would have been happy to let me have it... So they gave me this ruined, battered, tore up shabby leather belt. I haven't worn another since. It has a different buckle now, a replica Union Civil War officers buckle I found in a junk shop. I love it and won't replace or part with it.
I used to go dumpster diving with my dad, mostly for me to find old electronics to take apart and tinker with but one time we found a bunch of old Looney tunes framed pictures that were worth a bit of money and looked very cool. Nowadays I mainly use the various online marketplaces to scout for free items and I've gotten lots of computers and other things that people just give away.
Austin/Round Rock Texas in the 90's. From an Amtgaard/SCA perspective. I scored entire sheets of top quality light, medium, and dense foam from dumpsters, scrap remnants from fabric stores, and the occasional trip to the ED for a refresh of my tetanus booster. Fond memories.
8:16 - "You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed." - Coach Bob in (the book) _The Hotel New Hampshire_ (I don't recall whether that line is in the movie as well), by John Irving.
Loved the "free" sign idea! I used to work at Fairchild aircraft, one of the manufacturers of the aircraft galley carts you mentioned. Every tech there had their toolbox mounted on one of these carts with the larger tools and supplies in the great deep drawn aluminum trays that fit inside. I didn't keep the rolling cart but I still have a few of the trays for organizing stuff in the home shop. I think Fairchild got out of this business after a spate of lawsuits from flight attendants that were for repetitive stress injuries purportedly caused by holding down the brake release built into the handles on each end.
If it were not for dumpster diving, I'd have never made it through my first year of design school. I still employ this methodology to this day in refitting my 1965 sailboat ⛵..reduce / reuse/ recycle 🙌
Oh, the stuff you find at the end of the spring semester in the dorm trash rooms... I had a couch, a couple of mini fridges, lamp... Me and my roommate went to the trash room on every floor and grabbed anything useful or that could be sold. Also my last employer tossed a ton of computer parts in the dumpster behind the building one day. The building next door was a medical supply facility and they tossed out an INSANE amount of egg carton foam (to the point it was overflowing and needed at a minimum two dumpsters) which I used for soundproofing my air compressor cabinet and padding for packing.
Downtown San Diego had great dumpster diving. My boss would drive around and come back with all kinds of things. Lays potato chips had a distribution center near us and my friends parents knew the day all the past due items got thrown in the trash. Funniest sight watching them pull up, jump in the dumpster, and start throwing bags of chips and snacks out of it.
Yeah! for dumpster diving! I have made a good side gig dumpster diving. One of the best scores was a $2000 infinity bathroom sink. New in box. I sold it for $600. I still own a 1941 Zenith upright console that I picked when I was 15 years old. 50 years ago. I found a electric chain saw at the dump that the only thing wrong with it was the chain brake was on.
I used to do dump runs for my old job. One day the guy next to me tossed a few binders out into the pile, they instantly caught my eye and when he left I grabbed them. They were full of old slides from the 60s and early 70s from what seemed like an game warden up in Alaska and Montana. The binders were full of amazing slides ranging from vistas, to animals, lakes, rivers, people and trucks. I hope the person tossing them did so because they had digitized them. Would have been a proper loss.
I grew up in a college town... dumptser diving barely requires diving. My dad found not one, but TWO E Scooters, one worked fine, other had a loose wheel, and when tightened, also worked fine. He sold one and kept the other. Lol.
This is important stuff for young creators to learn, seriously. I used to do large items pickup weekend in Wilmette north of Chicago (super rich suburb, like where the "Home Alone" location house is). Wealthy residents are... afraid of 'dirty Chicago people' or whatever, unsurprisingly. So like large electronics they often will cut the power cord off with scissors like that makes it less desirable or some people would even pour stuff on the their things like bleach or glue or something, like they don't want other people using their trash, they prefer it to be destroyed and sitting someplace. It's a common, disgusting practice of people with extreme wealth. Great stuff, though, computers, camera equipment, furniture, pieces for props. I got a lot of great vintage toys and cameras that way. Don't be afraid, just wear gloves and reuse everything!
Some of my best finds were a very nice half ton electric hoist that needed new seals, a whole pile of white wire shelving, and considerable amounts of yellow pine and assorted lumber from large shipping crates.
The part around 7:40 about repeating your failures reminds me of a piece of advice that bill hader recieved from someone regarding screenwriting. "Make more mistakes, but quickly."
I've picked up some usable steel from dumpster diving, mostly bedframes. My father found quite a nice toaster oven that wasn't working, after pressing the reset button on the back it worked fine.
SRL was insane. They had a setup in a vacant lot in Berkeley that blew my mind. The police came by and the entire crowd told them they were not needed.
Back in the late 80s early 90s my friends and I were part of the late night scene in SF, Palo Alto, and Berkeley. There is a universe of cool things to do and see between 10pm and 6am when most people are asleep. One of those things was the night gallery, a visit to the Academy of Art "campus" after hours and hanging out with the artists working on their projects late at night. I imagine this is how salons must have been like in Paris in the 19th century. The ones there at that hour were the passionate and obsessed ones.
My mom used to teach for a preschool in some super rural town in northern VA, and directly behind the playground was this old half collapsed shed that the locals seemed to use as a dumping area for garbage. Whenever I visited my mom at her job I'd go digging thru the piles of stuff people dumped, and would find some pretty neat stuff. Found an old CD case that still had some CDs in it. Looked like someone had spilled some coffee or something on it. Most of the CDs were ok, but a few were so sticky I had to cut those pages out lol Found a neat framed picture of a sail boat that had very slight water damage on the back, still mostly wrapped in plastic with the price tag on it! Found a whole stack of pizza hut cups! Washed em up and game some to some friends, my two younger brothers, and kept one for myself. Still have it to this day! Found a 3 wheeler once, sadly was too big to take home in my mom's car, but I spent about 3 total weeks trying to get it running again. Sadly it never worked out cause before I could figure out what was wrong, my mom quit teaching there. Oh well. The creepiest thing I ever found a trash bag filled with the headless bodies of barbies and GI-joes. All nude. I put that bag into a corner and promptly tried to forget about it lol Found an old power ranger lunch box that was missing its handle. Was very similar to one I had as a kid in the 90s. Held onto it for a few years before giving it away to goodwill. The best part about this spot is it seemed like I was the only one who really went thru it. Tho tbh most of the rest of the stuff was usually old tires, bags of empty beer cans, old rotting wood, occasionally some car parts, etc, so it wasn't always good stuff. But occasionally I'd find a neat thing I could take home. :) The best thing I ever found there was a badass boombox/stereo system! Only thing wrong with it was one of the cassette slots had eaten a cassette and became jammed. Took a good solid hour and a half to untangle that mess, but afterwords, I had a pretty sweet stereo system in my room! I was only 13y/o at the time so I was riding high after that find. Smash Mouth never sounded so good! =P
As a kid I kept bringing stuff home from other people's trash when I walked home from Elementary school in San Jose. My Dad thought he'd "cured" it by telling me I had to ask and get permission from the people who put the garbage out before I could take it. The next week I brought several things home and he didn't believe that I had asked, so we went back to the closest place that I got a big floor standing radio from and he went and asked if I had indeed asked, the whole time thinking I couldn't have been brave enough to ask a stranger to take their trash. He never doubted me again ... and I've had some GREAT hauls.
The best for me was a 1200 watt SVT bass amp that I fixed for around $5 in parts. I still have it to this day.
Trash and treasure... when you are done with an item, it still has plenty of life left not everything on the street is broken.
I have given stuff like that away when I simply didn’t have the space for it: bunch of Hi-Fi components and a pair of huge speakers. I now have more than enough space, but I don’t regret giving stuff away. And when I told a friend that I had to get rid of the large speakers, he gave me a pair of studio monitors he wasn’t using anymore - I still have those 20 years later.
@@mm9773 I got a studio monitor amp for nothing and suddenly needed to re-setup my hi-fi from the past, went around searching out super deals on a turntable and floor standing speakers, and as soon as I got them my neighbor throws away his whole hi-fi system :)
I got rid of a bunch of speakers to friends to get them hooked too :)
im glad adam talked about this. because i was a bit ashamed, but to keep budgets low/0 for my work i frequently scan trash piles and occasionally peek in dumpsters for set dressings, replaced lighting fixtures ect and so fourth. its nice to know im closer to normal.
I can't tell you how many times I've watched you answer questions and I get to pick up on a piece of advice or wisdom that I internalize and plan to carry with me for the rest of my life. It's also immensely satisfying when it aligns with my currently accumulated wisdom and experience. It builds on it and reinforces it, increasing my confidence, self-esteem, and life outlook.
Thank you so much Adam, and the endlessly enlightening and entertaining way you imbue your kindness and wisdom onto all who happily listen.
Lovely comment, thank you. We will pass along to Adam!
I've found some insane stuff in dumpsters over the years.
A. 10x binocular laboratory microscopes. MSRP on them was $8000 each. 1x worked fine. 2x needed new lights($10 each). The other 7x had enough working parts to make 4x completely working units. I donated them to a school science program and sold the spare parts from the 3 broken ones to cover costs.
B. "Dozens and dozens" of laptops. On more than one occasion I have found stacks of laptops in office park dumpsters. They are usually old enough to be written off, but new enough to be TOTALLY useful if they work. It is pretty common to find 20x broken ones that can be taken apart and made into 5-10x working ones. It takes time, which is why IT departments just write them off and chuck them.
Broken screens are pretty common. Replacements can be had.
I have donated probably 100+ 1-2 generation old laptops to various school/STEM programs over the years. I had a few smaller batches with expensive screens, but perfectly working motherboards that I mounted like blades in a single 6U server rack and used as a cluster for years.
C. 2x Aluminum fishing boats. Yes. 2 boats. Someone took the time to put them INTO the dumpster. Not leaning against it. Not on a trailer next to it. INTO it, so I wasn't worried that it was theft. 1 was undamaged. The other had 2 minor leaks. I gave them both away, the leaky one went to someone who wanted a boat and had aluminum welding equipment.
D. 16'x24' portable garage. Missing 1 tube from the frame. Several tears in one of the side panels. Missing one end panel. Roof, 1x side panel, and 1x end panel were in great shape. The missing tube from the frame was just a straight piece. I found a slightly smaller piece of similar tubing in a different dumpster a month later and made a shim so it fit nicely. I donated it to a Boy Scout troop who used it as a "Chow Tent" for at least a decade. Not having 1 side and 1 end turned out to be a "feature" for them.
E. 6x rows of airline 'economy' seating. That's 3 seats each. I was renting a house with several people at the time and had a very weirdly shaped living room that I had already bought a projector for to turn into a theater. The room was 12'x22' super long and skinny. I built tiered seating with a 2' tall platform in the back of the room, and a 1' platform in the middle. 6x seats per platform. It was hilarious. However, airline seats SUCK. We had them for less than a month (4x Friday movie nights) before we ditched them and got 3x big couches from a furniture liquidator. We kept the tiered seating.
F. 64 folding chairs. Also 4x rolling racks that held 16x chairs each. I almost didn't take these because they were beside the dumpster on the carts instead of IN the dumpster. But the dumpster was at the far end of a parking lot away from any buildings. They had to be hauled like 300' to be put there. I took 8 in my car. Then I spent a few hours trying to figure out where the hell I could keep the rest, and how to get them there. The 4x carts took up a whole parking space. It was a LOT of chairs. They were old but serviceable. I have no idea why they were in that parking lot, because the businesses there were warehouses or parts manufacturing. Anyway, I remember some going to a campground. I don't remember where the rest ended up, but I know I had STACKS of folding chairs in a garage for years...
G. A pumped fiber laser. It took power through a custom connector so I couldn't power it up if I'd wanted to.
After finding the info on it, and seeing it was rated at 1.4kw, id did NOT want to.
Okay I did, but it would have been stupid to do so. And I couldn't anyway.
I ended up giving it to a friend-of-a-friend-of-an-acquaintance about 8 months later. This guy had worked with high-power lasers. After a few weeks he told me it was missing the power supply unit, and he suspected there was some damage to one of the fiber stages. He figured it would cost $10k-$25k to repair, and they were still being sold. The company that made them didn't publish prices. You called them and told them what you need and they quoted you for it. It was one of those "If you need one you have one" kinda situations." so there was basically zero demand for a used unit at any price.
He figured it probably cost about $300k-$500k new though.
I told him he could part it out or do whatever else he wanted with it.
H. Some dude's wallet. ~$800 in cash in it. It also had his drivers license and a bunch of credit cards.
I drove out to his house the next day, which was about 40 minutes away, to give it back to him (found it at 2am).
Dude was a weapons grade PoS. He called the cops, despite me leaving the cash/cards in it.
I spent the afternoon at some podunk sheriff's office trying to explain why I HADN'T kept the cash...
I have also a bunch of stuff that shouldn't have ever been in dumpsters...
Boxes of prescription medication. Like, a dozen bottles with 5k pills in each one. Not some individual dose packaging.
Called the cops on this one.
Hazardous chemicals. I'm lucky I wore heavy duty gloves because on one occasion I found several large bottles labeled Hydrofluoric acid at the bottom of a dumpster.
Leaking bottles.
That was an immediate 911 call. Luckily I wasn't exposed, but hazmat sprayed me with something at the scene and gave me a ride to the hospital just in case.
Lots of racoons/snakes/possums/etc one time it was bats.
I've also run into 2 very strange dumpsters.
One was full of concrete.
Not bags.
Solid concrete.
Someone must have opened it up and dumped tons of wet concrete in there and it had cured.
I have no idea if there had been anything inside of it at the time, or if it was empty.
The other one was about 2/3 full of jelly beans.
Not bags of jelly beans.
Several cubic meters of assorted lose jelly beans.
No, it was not in the parking lot of a candy factory/distributer/etc.
I still haven't figured that one out.
What do the logistics of randomly disposing of several yards of jelly beans look like, I wonder…
I kinda wonder who's missing mobster is/was in the concrete dumpster...
@@Larken42the local factory in my city gives them to pig farmers
@@matthewhall5571 fair. I knew of a dairy that gave waste yogurt to a mink farm.
Yes. Mink. As in the weasel. No, I don’t know what would inspire someone to farm mink, apart from their pelts, but somebody did 🤷
Do you know where to look or do you just look into thousands of dumpsters?
My best dumpster find was about 4-5 years ago. A local business was switching over to LED lighting from low draw fluorescents. The old fixtures were sitting in a dumpster outside. Took 2 trips, but I got all the good ones. I now have 10 of the units in my garage shop. I have really good lighting that draws less power than the random mixture of the older style units I had before. Now the lights don't dim when I first turn on my tablesaw.
The greatest score my dad made was a full cabinet of a complete set of microfilm-slides containing the entire maintenance manual to the Fokker-50 aircraft. It was sitting in the pile of getting-thrown-away when Fokker Aircraft was going bankrupt and he thought to himself "are you nuts?!" He sold a lot of manuals to companies operating that aircraft in the decades after.
My best dumpster dive was at the end of the school year when I saw our teacher toss out boxes of magic the gathering decks into the bin under his desk. He had confiscated them middle of the year during a tourney we held at the school. The wait until he left felt like forever. I did return the decks to their respective owners, and got my blue flying weenie deck back.
Ah, I don't miss school. Not one bit.
I went to a religious school, and the math teacher always sipped from this mug. Constantly. I remember one of my friends snuck a drink from it and it was 75% rum.
I have books from my old school, they were rescued from being burnt as the schools idiotic way of getting rid of old tatty books was to Fahrenheit 451 them.
I always thought that was really shoddy of teachers not to return confisicated stuff at the end of the year.
I had a Galaxy sci-fi mag with a half read story taken away.
It would be decades until I found that story online and finished it.
Man, thats like super illegal, gkue and ink become toxic fumes when set fire to, im talking serious stuff
@pixiniarts
I used to dumpster dive because I was poor & couldn't afford things like furniture. Found most of what I owned that way. One of my coolest scores as a drummer was a fine Dumbek with a 14" head that someone had burned out (it was a synthetic head, so it had somehow melted) that they'd thrown out instead of replacing the head. All I had to do was replace the head & I had a fully functional drum worth hundreds of dollars.
!!!!
Oh dang, now that's a find!
I'm stealing that free sign idea.
Survival of the fitness, boys.
The irony of stealing an idea to get away with stealing. Well, I'M not going to let you get away with it. ...Actually, I am, cause that FREE sign is a great idea.
I’m putting a “free” sign on that idea and taking it for myself
Don’t think it’ll save you from prison.
Just remember to throw the free sign down before you steal the idea.
My best find was actually from hard rubbish collection, but it was a beautiful La Marzocco coffee machine. It was sitting on the side of the road with a leaky group head seal. For a 30 cent part (and $7.00 shipping) I scored a several thousand dollar coffee machine! Its been nearly 5 years and I still have it! The things rich people throw out are astounding!
Nothing surprises me anymore. They probably didn’t want to futz around with a machine where parts are under pressure and couldn’t find anyone who would repair a coffee machine, and they had their eye on an upgrade anyway, and they thought nobody would buy a “broken” machine, and and and. I can see it with my dad: the idea of trading old stuff is something that doesn’t enter his mind at all - he always rolls his eyes when I come home with used furniture, even though he can see the value. From his point of view it’s something that “successful” people just don’t do.
@@mm9773 It's ridiculous! I see myself as quite succesful, owing in part to being thrifty and willing to sacrifice buying new stuff all the time. If I'm lucky this coffee machine will last me well into old age. Buy once, cry once is the motto my parents taught me, and they also taught me how to fix almost anything. I don't think the world would be in such a pickle if more people took pride in making, keeping, and restoring quality equipment!
god bless those wonderful people who can't be bothered learning simple fixes
Throwing out something like that without bothering to fix it is definitely something my aunt in law would do
When I was a kid I found a really fancy expensive set of silverware in a dumpster. The entire set was just trown out because it was missing onw knife! My parents put it aside for me. Some 40 years later I still use it. I never have more than 3 guests over for dinner so it doesn't matter that I only have 5 knives. I'm still always on the lookout for a 6th at thrift stores etc. though. Who knows Maybe one of these days I'll get lucky again
Such a great story!
There are services that sell spare pieces of sets. Check the internet and real antique dealers.
It just dawned on me after all these years that the set might have been thrown out to get rid of evidence! I feel a bit creeped out right now actually. Because perhaps the missing knife was used in a crime and the perpetrator was just trying to sever their connection to it. In case the knife was ever found!
Think about it... It's actual silver and that never made sense to me. Until now maybe. What an unsettling thought
@@LilSirAxolotl Knife blades can shatter when you drop them, a missing knife is not uncommon. Of course the question remains why someone would then take the whole set to a dumpster and throw it away. Creepy, but actually an even better story.
@@mm9773 Very true! It'll definitely be a nice conversation piece during future dinners
Dumpster driving was my childhood obsession, and I scored so much cool stuff. I don't go out scavenging anymore, but my workplace throws out a lot of chunks of 6061 aluminum and mcmaster carr hardware, hardened screws, springs, dowel pins, etc., and I save almost all of it.
> workplace throws out a lot of ... mcmaster carr hardware
Dude. Seriously. Considering the price and quality of that stuff... someone needs a talkin' to at work.
@@GeneCash I should clarify, the bits that get thrown out is mostly little stuff that gets dropped and swept up later, and forgotten leftovers from projects, all of them outside their labelled packages. It would take too much paid time for someone to identify and sort it. But me, I love fasteners, and sitting at home at my workbench with calipers and thread gauges is therapeutic!
You're right about NYC. My college roomies and I practically furnished our entire apartment with stuff left on the street. If a new roommate came in with better stuff, we'd put the old things on the curb, hang out our window, and see how long it took for someone else to grab it. Fun times. The best find among us all. One roomate and her friend were out walking and found a small vanity covered in tramp art by the trash. They dragged and pushed it from blocks away and carried it upstairs into our fifth floor walk up. Beautiful piece. She still has it.
Adam’s ability to mentally catalogue and most importantly retrieve as needed, his vast experience, is a truly remarkable thing. And being able to weave those experiences and the lessons learned into his dialogue lends great depth to his explanations and advice. He is simply an incredible teacher. The wise one you sit around the village fire to hear, to learn about life.
The "Free" sign is genius 🤣
Best thing I found was after a company that made... pumps or motors or something. They closed the office down and cleared out - I got loads of boxes of neodymium magnets.
@@Telukin 😳 Nice! I have used small neodymium magnets in my EMF Emitter builds before; handy little items! Your lucky score sounds like your magnets were a tad bigger though… 😄 👍
Any hard drive that comes my way that is dead or too outdated for me to bother trying to sell, I salvage the neodymium magnets out of. Just about every one will have 2.
Desktop drives (3.5in HDD) have two nice sized ones. Laptop drives (2.5in HDD) are usually two, sometimes one, but the magnet is WAY way thinner.
They're often affixed to a chunk of metal with holes in it, so that makes it easy to repurpose. At my cabin, I have one attached at the end of an old garden rake handle by some fishing line, not long but just so that it can move around. If anyone drops anything in the river it comes in clutch for retrieving! _(glacier fed, so it's ice cold water that you don't wanna go in, and also teal so joy can't see the bottom either way)_
And since they're *_so friggen strong,_* even most stainless steel is still ferrous enough that it'll pick it up. (ie fillet knives)
As a kid in the 1950's, trash day was my favorite day of the week.
As a grownup, I have found GREAT stuff in dumpsters over the years. Big apartment/condominium complexes are good - someone is always moving.
I now want to see someone make Adam a dumpster drag race
You know those plastic poly carts? Find a big hill. Lay the poly cart down, where the wheels are on still on the ground, open end pointing downhill. Sit on the cart with your weight directly above the wheels. Grab the handle right in front of you. Hang on and have 911 ready. Drag either foot to steer, both to brake.
I am envisioning a garbage truck made from a dumpster, that empties other resource-rich dumpsters into it.
It’s Junkyard Wars, but shot guerilla-style at 3am in an industrial park 🤣
@@dang_industries I miss that show! 😭
Kind of 'reverse dumpster diving': I was stripping out a kitchen, putting all the panels in a skip (dumpster) to take to the tip. Guy comes along in a car and says 'Are you slinging those?' 'yup.' 'Don't wreck them I'll give you X£ for them intact.' He came back later with a small truck and took the lot. The airplane food cvontainer story reminded me: 25 years ago at work someone brought in some bank cashier(teller) trolleys to get rid of on one of our winter bonfires. Lovely, solid things about 10 ply plywood, with 3 lockable drawers, smooth as silk bearings and steerable nylon wheels. Still used for tool storage.
I once worked a Summer job at a dump, or rather a collection point for old batteries, fluorescent tubes and stuff like that - virtually all of the equipment, tools, shelving etc. was put together from scrap, leftovers and demolition jobs. The radio was exclusively powered with batteries that people had brought in.
Trash collection day or "Spring Cleaning" in our area has always been a favored pastime of mine to just wander around and find goodies. My current porch furniture and tables inside my house all came from those piles. Have also found guitar cases and equipment.
The story you tell, starting at 8:28, about what all the working artists had in common was hugely helpful to me. To divide things into "what I was and wasn't willing to become obsessed with" is exactly the insight I needed right now. Thanks for sharing it.
my grandpa owned a lawncare business. he bought a new mower and put the old one by the road, nobody took it for over a week, the city was going to charge him to haul it away. he put a sign on it that said "$50". someone stole it that night
What I've bagged just before landing in the dumpster. 22 years ago, a professional video projector. I loved video equipment and this was the mother-lode. I can't recall how many input and outputs it had but there were some I'd never heard of or seen since. It was being dumped because the globe wasn't working and they were around $600. I suspected the issue but didn't say anything.
First thing was looking up the availability of a new globe. I can get one, but yeah, it'll cost a whole bag of fresh clams.
When I got it home I carefully opened the case and with cotton gloves, I turned the globe, tightening it a smidgen. Switched it on and voila. A lovely large blue screen on my wall. I plugged my PS1 in and wow. BIG.
My best score was in the early 80/s I was working for an electronic components wholesaler and I was serving a customer from a telecommunications company, and in the early days of personal computers. He and I got on the subject of printers, and they were getting rid of some older equipment that could be used as printers, he asked if I or any others in our staff was interested and I said yes. About an hour later a five ton truck pulls up and they start unloading 15 complete ASR-33 Teletype machines with keyboards and paper tape options. I hooked it up as a serial printer, my girlfriend at the time was not happy as we lived in a one bedroom apartment along with my collection of antique radios of various sizes, it was just a little crowded lol.
When I was in middle school living in San Jose, we used to go dumpster diving at night in high tech office parks, including one with Activision. We came home with huge boxes of Atari 2600 games which was an amazing score for that time.
Wow!!!!
There used to be a dump at Kansas University in the 80's that was DREAMY! It was jam packed with old tech the engineering, computer & med schools disposed of for tax purposes. Security was fairly lax and some of the guys there would let us grab stuff, but most would just ask us to leave. It was gone before I graduated.
Okay, not technically dumpster diving, but the town my dad lived in many years ago had a section of the town dump for scrap wood, etc. where contractors could dump their scrap wood. People could then go and pick through it. We had a great time because there was always some good stuff like mahogany, maple, oak, or cherry. My brother and I both made bookcases from boards we found. I still have my bookcase after 25 years.
At our local recycling center you’ll get into trouble if you try to take stuff, but I have to say people seem to have caught on: I always have a peek into the scrap wood container, and usually all I see is IKEA particle board and cheap pine.
@@mm9773 My retired brother in law lives on Long Island NY in an area popular for summer rentals by NYC dwellers. They'll rent a place for a month or 2, and the family stays there and enjoys the beaches, etc., while the bread winner may only spend the weekends. This area doesn't have local trash pickup, but rather a transfer station with large dumpsters that get emptied weekly. The locals and some summer visitors take their own trash there, while others might have their housekeepers do it. The tenants will often buy what ever they think they need to entertain themselves, but at the end of the lease it can't stay in the rental. Since the transfer station also has areas for recycle and reusable items, at the end of the summer you can find sporting goods, flat screen TV's, gaming systems, BBQ's, beach furniture, etc. that is all only a few months old and free for the taking. My brother in law often collects stuff for his annual yard sale, and usually makes a good chunk of change.
Agreed with NYC having the best dumpster diving, and the best part is that it's all on the sidewalk and not even in a dumpster! I moved here with minimal things and I outfitted my entire apartment within a week or two just by walking around. My favorite scores were a 4'x3' painting of an anthropomorphized zebra that currently hangs above my bed, a full set of free weights, a crt for retro gaming, an all-gender bathroom sign from a restaurant that I put on my bathroom door at home, and a set of nice clay carving tools.
The fact that someone as successful as Adam Savage has dumpster dived, and is now willing to openly talk about it - including even getting pulled over by the police - just shows how incredibly human Adam is. And it makes me feel better about being, simply human, also. None of us are perfect, we are all in this together ❤
Failing then suceeding is absolutely the -heart- of good software QA. Finding out -exact- steps the reproduce the problem is the best start to figuring the problem.
I’m not a maker, but this reminds me of being a poor grad student, looking forward to the equivalent of trash days to pick up fixable furnitures, appliances, even a 13” black and white tv.
The best dumpster diving in the 80s for me was in Elmsford NY, Adam's back yard. I was living/working in Tarrytown at the time.
The industrial park there had a lot of new electronics firms. Their dumpsters always had lots of fully populated circuit boards. Lots of logic chips, transistors and other components to salvage.
Stuff I didn't need I would take to the local hamfest and they would sell like hot cakes. Good times!😂
9:00 when you discussed becoming obsessed with what your work is / what you're working on, I can tell you it's 100% true.. even in common jobs... I was assigned to work security at a semiconductor manufacturing plant, and while everyone else was content to mess around on their phones while they weren't busy, I was asking questions on how the equipment functioned to the techs and emergency response team who saw the machines every day ... This helped me gain a better understanding of what was wrong with the unit when someone called in a leak report on it, and what specific questions I could also ask past the basic general area questions... Then when I got assigned to a data center I got to know that equipment as well, and could more thoroughly explain an issue prior to on-scene arrival of the OPS team who took the unit out of service and made repairs... They really appreciated the extra dedication to learning the equipment so they could prioritize the response over other downed equipment and gauge the severity and impact .. it also just showed them an increase in level of dedication and attention to detail and gained me more rep/standing in reliability and dependability... I always attempted to pass all the info on to my new-hires so we could all match a quality standard higher than normal... But some could care less and be satisfied with bare-minimum..
As a kid we had this "Sperrmülltage" here in Germany too and it was like Christmas to look through the stuff people threw out. The most memorable thing was when i brought home a crutch and my mom freaked out why i would bring it even home. Later that day she missed a step on the staircase and sprained her angle. After that my wrongdoing was that i didn't bring a second one home 😂
I LOVE DUMPSTER DIVING! always have since I got my licence. We call it hard-rubbish in Australia but no verbal form. We have another word that is verbal: scabbing. So I guess it's hard-rubbish scabbing.
Your advice regarding obsession really spoke to me. I've spent a lot of time feeling guilty for "wasting time" getting obsessed with minutiae, but I'm starting to see that hyperfocus as a gift.
Adam’s discussion of obsession has really clarified something in my brain that will make a lasting impression on me. Thank you.
My best find was a PS2 Slim. Just needed a new A/V port. Easy fix and still works today.
My worst experience dumpster diving was when i was 18 and found a roll of metal pool surround literally on the curb up to the road; i thought "score! That would be perfect for making barriers for playing paintball!" So i loaded it into my junky 91 corsica and went home. The next day a cop came to my house and said it wasn't trash and the owners wanted it back. So they took the time to peek out their window and write down my license plate numbers, but couldn't be bothered to yell out and say "that pile of broken pool junk that's literally on the curb isn't trash".
The cop had such a bad attitude too. Looked right down his nose and said "who picks through someone else's trash anyway"
My town is very small (fewer than 250 people) and "spring clean up" week, the city put out roll-off dumpsters for everyone in the city to use. I got a LOT of good stuff out of there, including new 24' sticks of angle steel! One year, my brother and I pulled over two tons of old appliances, mowers, and metal scrap and hauled it in for scrap. Recycling and making cash at the same time. :D
Adam remembers more than most people forget in a lifetime !
Love dumpsters. Got all my garage cabinets, garage countertops, some of the big wide file cabinets (great garage storage), a perfectly good shop vac (just needed the switch cleaned, even had all the hose and attachments inside), perfectly good lawnmower tires, a brand new K&N cone air filter (sold it for $40), the list goes on and on.
A couple of my better D.D. Scores, TWO Pioneer rack-mountable reel to reel 1/4 track tape players, a 12-volt railroad crossing bell, and a genuine Zero Halliburton suitcase.
Another great video! Can't wait to get a membership again and see this live again!
Also, 3D printing is a lot of trial and error at first, nobody gets a perfect print as soon as they get a printer. Anyone reading this/member who asked the question: don't let it discourage you! You can and will get it right eventually!
I thought, I want to watch something fun, something comfortable; I think a lot of us need that today.
Adam Savage. Always fun, comfortable, compassionate, and full of passion. I don't think I speak for myself when I feel like he's an old friend, and listening.
Today, though, this episode, talking about replicating a mistake so you know what went wrong, seems like a very timely message.
Thank you Adam
I grew up in the 1970s in Toronto, right on the edge of an industrial district. Me and my nerd friends lived in heaven :) A large laboratory equipment distributor. Zenith and Sunbeam both had factories there. There was a massive graveyard of commercial refrigerators. A company called "Radio Speakers of Canada", and many many others. Oh yeah, a commercial bakery with a really mean guard dog :(
I can't say I've gone dumpers diving, but I always like to keep an eye out in my neighborhood when I go around because you can always find something
I've found some parts I've needed, vintage holiday decorations, wood, old tools that just needed a little tinkering & probably some of the coolest things I have found were a slightly dirty PS1 with a small bag of random games (a few PS1, some X-Box 360 & a stack of manuals) & a Dreamcast that worked after a quick teardown & clean!
(Also, that free sign is just the best idea 😂)
I love the free sign story. Mine was visiting our kids in Melbourne here in Australia and somebody had moved out and left a pile of stuff for collection on hard rubbish day. There was a black plastic cash register sitting on the pile so I decided it might be fun to pull it apart. Anyways, of course I opened the draw and it was empty but when I finally worked out how to remove the draw bingo! $140 in notes was under the draw. I think the best part was telling our daughter and son in law as they were used to me roaming the streets when visiting and would roll their eyes at me. Not this time.😂
In the early 70’s I was a kid living in Port Canaveral, Florida and on occasion would see interesting piles of stuff at the apartment building across the street. This was at the end of the Apollo Program so I acquired some decent Mission Manuals from those “Trash Piles” from workers who were leaving the area when let go who then moved on to other areas like California.
I have a WW2 Japanese pineapple grenade I found curb shopping, in the same haul was a Snap On air hammer in the box, it might have been used twice. Still have both to this day.
That's brilliant. Bringing your own free sign LOL
"Replicating the failure" is a huge part of my job as a programmer. My workplace requires test evidence on every ticket, enhancement, and defect, so I spend a lot of time just figuring out how to make something break. And just because its software doesn't mean its always quick iteration times. Some stuff we do can take hours to test once.
As a serious amateur blacksmith, I’m always looking for anything that I can repurpose as either raw material or tools. One of the best things you can do in this category is to make friends with the scrap metal collectors in your area, who make a living gathering up metal trash and taking it to sell at the scrapyard. If you’re willing to pay a premium over scrap price, you can get some great material for less than what you’d pay to the metal supplier.
My greatest find is probably a ~1960s F. Dick 260mm slicing knife in carbon steel, which I sharpened and use to cut out roasts, love it!
Also found a Swedish made paper basket made out of Teak, also from the 60s.
Found some newer Wüsthof and Zwilling knives and some other unknown but still quality knives, bunch of different tools, old Danish made hammers from DSI (Danish Steel Industry, stopped production around year 2000), one of the ground keepers in my area even had some DSI hammers that I would say most likely are from before the 60s, wooden planes with quality Swedish Eskilstuna irons and other Eskilstuna tools (Eskilstuna chisels pretty much have legendary status)
And a lot more.
One of the grounds keepers in my area whom is also a good friend also collects around the area and gives me stuff he knows I want.
I can confirm that there is indeed a company named F. Dick that produces good quality knives. I live about 45 minutes from their headquarters.
My father in law was a computer programmer working on military aircraft systems which went wrong more often than those in charge would like us to know. Pilots would return with tales of systems not working as they were expected to and he had to address this. He said that 99% of his job was replicating failure. Once he knew what was going wrong he generally had an immediate answer. Looked at another way, computers do exactly what we tell them to do. The challenge is understanding what exactly we have told them to do. Working that out teaches us how to refine our instructions.
Damn good idea on the sign thing. My wife hates my dumpster diving/roadside picking even though she benefits from it... So far the best picks for me are tvs and a riding lawnmower. I still use the riding lawnmower 6 years later.
That's a good idea to replicate your failures. You won't know what is really failing. If you replicate it, then you could solve that failure even better instead of tinkering with 5 or 10 other things that might have helped but not in the long run. That's a pretty good advice. That's the only way to fix it properly to know what is really failing or not working right or etc. Because if you do too many fixing what you think isn't working right? You're just kind of putting a Band-Aid on it till of that failure actually fails permanently. Although on certain things you might want to be cautious. Just trying to replicate that failure or whatever that's not working might be the last straw of that part or piece or software hardware LOL. And it really might stop working LOL but that's the Gamble LOL
I've only done this once, but someone took me dumpster diving at the Stanford dorms around graduation time, and... suffice it to say we got some stuff that I was happy to have gotten. :)
When I was a kid we found a nearly mint, fully functional Thule roof box in the dumpster outside our house in the Persidio. This was over 20 years ago and it is still in use to this day.
One time in my youth living in a little town called Worland, Wyoming I went behind a Radio Shack looking in their dumpster, it was empty but at the bottom was a fresh booklet of $20 foodstamp notes totaling $400.
I've been a dumpster diver since I was a kid, fixed a 1940's radio my dad had by scavenging old tube TV's in the 80's.
I still look through Kijiji's free stuff everyday for treasure. Picking up a beautiful writing desk today for free.
I thought I was so clever figuring out the industrial park dumpster gold mine. I thought I was the only one. My town also has an electronics recycling dumpster that I visit multiple times a week. Some of my favorite finds were high end projectors and various pro audio equipment, crazy powerful amps and stuff.
I was a young lad in the 90’s and I would dumber dive a lot of places but my favorite was Hastings and estate sale throw a ways. I have found some very very unique things!
Some of my best dumpster dives weren't in the dumpster. People like me put anything that they think someone might want next to the dumpster. Like in the area that an apartment building often has that is fenced off for big items like mattresses and couches.
For example, when I'm doing a demolition job, I put all the steel next to the big construction waste dumpster for the scrap metal guys to pick up.
My best dumpster dive was, 5000 feet of 1 1/4 40 wall tubing cut into 12 foot lengths, it took 3 trailer loads to move, but I grabbed every piece
What a haul!
I love this man! God, if more people could have this kind of passion and love of life, we would all be a better society.
The local university had a department that was in charge of getting rid of stuff. It was kind of like dumpster diving. Things like iMacs would be priced close to Ebay but things they didn't know or were kind of broken were dirt cheap. I got a two year old managed switch for $3 and a very nice belt sander with wonky trigger for $20. The huge steals were when a department were getting rid of one year old towers with i7's for dirt cheap prices. "They decided to go with laptops." They were priced to move. The CPU alone was worth 2x what they were charging. They closed it for Covid.
I pulled up at a place that I worked one evening and parked on the far side of the dumpster to show a friend my office space. My headlights illuminated a plastic wrapped something behind the dumpster and a corner of the plastic wrapping was torn open. I stopped the vehicle and threw it in park and jumped out....my friend was baffled, but in that corner I recognized a massage table...plush, same color, make and model as my first one, but a different year, and it was in mint condition. I don't know who threw out an $800 Oakworks massage table, but I'm still 100% happy with it today. My poor friend thought I had lost my marbles until I explained.
Do you ever wonder if you stole a massage table that someone had hidden behind a dumpster to get a car and haul it home? 🤔
I need to learn the trash days and then carry a screwdriver…casters! Casters would be great!
My two favourite phrases from the first 4 minutes of this video are "big ticket crap" and "lotta television sets in mineral oil". Goddamn I love Adam.
Grew up around a large university campus, that was always building and upgrading, so many excellent items
So far, the best thing I've found in the trash is an entire lawn equipment style engine. It runs great. Got it directly from the pile at the municipal trash facility while I was there dropping of my own garbage from some renovation work. Still haven't found a proper use for it, but... I'm sure it'll be handy one day.
I would love to go dumpster diving with Adam ..
I’ve found some good stuff on college campuses on the last day of the semester. Students living in the dorms can rarely take all their stuff back home with them and the ones who are flying home often leave their TVs and large electronics which are typically only a few years old.
Yep, I moved from a decent apartment to a small bedroom in a much bigger town and had to leave a lot of good and fairly valuable stuff behind.
my siblings and I used to be all excited when my father announced he was going to the dump. After closing time tho. we came home with the wierdest stuff! you name it. The big trash day too, we would drive around with dad and again, we were thrilled.
I was just thinking about SRL THE other day! Oh back in the day when robot battles might actually maim an audience member.
I have a belt, I call the 'Dead Man's Belt' I was working cleaning jobs 20 odd years ago and the company gave us uniforms none of which fit, I was in desperate need of a belt and saw one being thrown out as 'locker trash' in the factory I was cleaning, I asked and the guys laughing said that the person who had died would have been happy to let me have it...
So they gave me this ruined, battered, tore up shabby leather belt.
I haven't worn another since.
It has a different buckle now, a replica Union Civil War officers buckle I found in a junk shop.
I love it and won't replace or part with it.
I used to go dumpster diving with my dad, mostly for me to find old electronics to take apart and tinker with but one time we found a bunch of old Looney tunes framed pictures that were worth a bit of money and looked very cool. Nowadays I mainly use the various online marketplaces to scout for free items and I've gotten lots of computers and other things that people just give away.
Love these videos, Adam Savage you're a living legend.
Austin/Round Rock Texas in the 90's. From an Amtgaard/SCA perspective. I scored entire sheets of top quality light, medium, and dense foam from dumpsters, scrap remnants from fabric stores, and the occasional trip to the ED for a refresh of my tetanus booster. Fond memories.
8:16 - "You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed." - Coach Bob in (the book) _The Hotel New Hampshire_ (I don't recall whether that line is in the movie as well), by John Irving.
Loved the "free" sign idea! I used to work at Fairchild aircraft, one of the manufacturers of the aircraft galley carts you mentioned. Every tech there had their toolbox mounted on one of these carts with the larger tools and supplies in the great deep drawn aluminum trays that fit inside. I didn't keep the rolling cart but I still have a few of the trays for organizing stuff in the home shop. I think Fairchild got out of this business after a spate of lawsuits from flight attendants that were for repetitive stress injuries purportedly caused by holding down the brake release built into the handles on each end.
If it were not for dumpster diving, I'd have never made it through my first year of design school. I still employ this methodology to this day in refitting my 1965 sailboat ⛵..reduce / reuse/ recycle 🙌
Oh, the stuff you find at the end of the spring semester in the dorm trash rooms... I had a couch, a couple of mini fridges, lamp... Me and my roommate went to the trash room on every floor and grabbed anything useful or that could be sold.
Also my last employer tossed a ton of computer parts in the dumpster behind the building one day. The building next door was a medical supply facility and they tossed out an INSANE amount of egg carton foam (to the point it was overflowing and needed at a minimum two dumpsters) which I used for soundproofing my air compressor cabinet and padding for packing.
Downtown San Diego had great dumpster diving. My boss would drive around and come back with all kinds of things.
Lays potato chips had a distribution center near us and my friends parents knew the day all the past due items got thrown in the trash. Funniest sight watching them pull up, jump in the dumpster, and start throwing bags of chips and snacks out of it.
Yeah! for dumpster diving! I have made a good side gig dumpster diving. One of the best scores was a $2000 infinity bathroom sink. New in box. I sold it for $600. I still own a 1941 Zenith upright console that I picked when I was 15 years old. 50 years ago. I found a electric chain saw at the dump that the only thing wrong with it was the chain brake was on.
Gotta be a skilled pilot to handle a skip.
I used to do dump runs for my old job. One day the guy next to me tossed a few binders out into the pile, they instantly caught my eye and when he left I grabbed them. They were full of old slides from the 60s and early 70s from what seemed like an game warden up in Alaska and Montana. The binders were full of amazing slides ranging from vistas, to animals, lakes, rivers, people and trucks. I hope the person tossing them did so because they had digitized them. Would have been a proper loss.
I grew up in a college town... dumptser diving barely requires diving.
My dad found not one, but TWO E Scooters, one worked fine, other had a loose wheel, and when tightened, also worked fine. He sold one and kept the other. Lol.
The progress bar above your head is frozen.
This is important stuff for young creators to learn, seriously. I used to do large items pickup weekend in Wilmette north of Chicago (super rich suburb, like where the "Home Alone" location house is). Wealthy residents are... afraid of 'dirty Chicago people' or whatever, unsurprisingly. So like large electronics they often will cut the power cord off with scissors like that makes it less desirable or some people would even pour stuff on the their things like bleach or glue or something, like they don't want other people using their trash, they prefer it to be destroyed and sitting someplace. It's a common, disgusting practice of people with extreme wealth. Great stuff, though, computers, camera equipment, furniture, pieces for props. I got a lot of great vintage toys and cameras that way. Don't be afraid, just wear gloves and reuse everything!
Some of my best finds were a very nice half ton electric hoist that needed new seals, a whole pile of white wire shelving, and considerable amounts of yellow pine and assorted lumber from large shipping crates.
The part around 7:40 about repeating your failures reminds me of a piece of advice that bill hader recieved from someone regarding screenwriting.
"Make more mistakes, but quickly."
I always knew he would turn a dumpster into a car that's my kind of guy
I've picked up some usable steel from dumpster diving, mostly bedframes. My father found quite a nice toaster oven that wasn't working, after pressing the reset button on the back it worked fine.
Me and my mom and aunt used to dumpster dive and it was always a blast it's like treasure hunting
SRL was insane. They had a setup in a vacant lot in Berkeley that blew my mind. The police came by and the entire crowd told them they were not needed.
LOVE the "free sign" story! haha!
Dumpster _driving??_
Haha didn't even notice 😅
😂
I mean, San Francisco is pretty hilly right?😂
Ok i admit dumpster driving was the only reason i clicked on this video just curious
With Adam, it's not implausible.
Feed the UA-cam algorithm with a comment. Great video. Thank you!
Back in the late 80s early 90s my friends and I were part of the late night scene in SF, Palo Alto, and Berkeley.
There is a universe of cool things to do and see between 10pm and 6am when most people are asleep. One of those things was the night gallery, a visit to the Academy of Art "campus" after hours and hanging out with the artists working on their projects late at night. I imagine this is how salons must have been like in Paris in the 19th century. The ones there at that hour were the passionate and obsessed ones.
My mom used to teach for a preschool in some super rural town in northern VA, and directly behind the playground was this old half collapsed shed that the locals seemed to use as a dumping area for garbage. Whenever I visited my mom at her job I'd go digging thru the piles of stuff people dumped, and would find some pretty neat stuff.
Found an old CD case that still had some CDs in it. Looked like someone had spilled some coffee or something on it. Most of the CDs were ok, but a few were so sticky I had to cut those pages out lol
Found a neat framed picture of a sail boat that had very slight water damage on the back, still mostly wrapped in plastic with the price tag on it!
Found a whole stack of pizza hut cups! Washed em up and game some to some friends, my two younger brothers, and kept one for myself. Still have it to this day!
Found a 3 wheeler once, sadly was too big to take home in my mom's car, but I spent about 3 total weeks trying to get it running again. Sadly it never worked out cause before I could figure out what was wrong, my mom quit teaching there. Oh well.
The creepiest thing I ever found a trash bag filled with the headless bodies of barbies and GI-joes. All nude. I put that bag into a corner and promptly tried to forget about it lol
Found an old power ranger lunch box that was missing its handle. Was very similar to one I had as a kid in the 90s. Held onto it for a few years before giving it away to goodwill.
The best part about this spot is it seemed like I was the only one who really went thru it. Tho tbh most of the rest of the stuff was usually old tires, bags of empty beer cans, old rotting wood, occasionally some car parts, etc, so it wasn't always good stuff. But occasionally I'd find a neat thing I could take home. :)
The best thing I ever found there was a badass boombox/stereo system! Only thing wrong with it was one of the cassette slots had eaten a cassette and became jammed. Took a good solid hour and a half to untangle that mess, but afterwords, I had a pretty sweet stereo system in my room! I was only 13y/o at the time so I was riding high after that find. Smash Mouth never sounded so good! =P