Two dinasour costumes, adult sized, one pink, one green, totally puffy and complete with swingin' spiky tail, booties to cover your shoes, and mittens.

dang! I would have eaten that meat! I cant belive ive been buying dog food, anyway, best find ever was a stack of aluminum HUD signs. They made the BEST pallates in the history of all art, my teachers were jealous of it. Unfortunatley I was diving on a date and the relationship didnt work out, and I only took one. If I had it to do over I would have taken the whole stack, as my date did. one day a gust of wind took mine into the providence river, and I have been searching in vain for another pallate like it ever since. My teachers (who were professional painters would come up to me and say "GREAT pallate! where did you get it?" and I would turn it over and say "government support of the arts" it was so nice, it was this polished coated aluminum and god it was perfect.

an entire shopping cart of ben and jerry's ice cream pints. i ran across town with about 200 pounds of melting ice cream and went door to door at friends houses in a college town stocking freezers as i went. like a ghetto ice cream man.!!! Jahmba style!!

booze, dumpstered booze is about the ultimate score. However, I heard a story from a friend about how he dumpstered some cold hard cash once, like 400 bucks.

a new sofa and love seat still in the plastic ..in the dumpster behind a furniture store.. the legs where missing so I took my old ones and put them on the new set.. man that was great but then almost all of my furniture is recycled.. R

a surfboard... i dont even know how to surf, but i have a really cool coffee table now.

also, at one of my jobs i was given the duty of throwing away unclaimed auction items... like a gift certificate for a weekend at a snazzy hotel on cape cod. that was a good weekend.

hi there.

i am new.

i had a friend, i believe not only did she go to jail for heroin, not only did she have geese in her yard on a major thoroughfare in los angeles, not only was she the booker of the music machine, but she lived off of dumpster diving/garage sales.

we used to go on garbage runs all the time. found lots of stuff--

furniture sells best, if i remember correctly. clothes hardly sell at all, even if they are mine, even if they are GOOD.

fastforward a few years, she, i believe, is in jail & not even painting very small shuffleboard (or something) courts in my parents backyard any more. my parents arent even here any more. w/ my mother, you know, that is a sad thing.

anyway.

better even than the elvis presley records & pewter letter openers w/ knights & enormous rhinestones--

just slightly better than the half burnt copy of "theater & its double" that i found on a sidewalk near what was then the mitchell bros theater--

my partner found an -inscribed- copy of "center of the cyclone" by JOHN LILLY in the garbage. not even just signed --inscribed-- not just to a person, but w/ a long, personal inscription. somewhere on this computer i have typed that inscription, b/c when we were really poor we sold it on ebay. knock me out.

today i found a globe on a stick across the street from my house. it was just sitting there.

in minneapolis once, i opened up a recycling dumpster by accident and there was a dude sleeping there. i woke him up, scared the shit out of him. haha, i didn't keep him so i don't know if that qualifies as a score... but i split some pre-wrapped sandwiches with him.

other then a real live bum in his natural habitat i've found things like; playstations and VCR's (that work) which i sell to the pawn shop to raise money for my anarchist conspiracies... and i find TONS of drug parif when the colleges leave... i sell that shit to kids since i dont smoke anymore and NO one should have 15 glass pipes.

onetime we were dumpstering and this guy walks up and asks me if i want the last one (swiss cake rolls) i said FUCK YEA!... i opened the box and underneath the last swiss cake roll was a twenty dollar bill. haha what a schmuck.

also, i love finding bikes in the dumpster.

One time i found a velvet hat, a nice green dress, and a really cute pair of pointy-toed shoes that fit perfectly, all in a dumpster down the street from my house.

I always wondered if I would run into the person that owned the outfit (since we were neighbors), or worse, the pissed off ex that threw out all her stuff.

very nice 30's dresser. 2 perfectly good nightstands. giant green glass fruitbowl. many things I still use/have to this day.

salad spinner (lettuce drying thingymerbob, is that the name?) that someone carved their initials in. I could never figure out why someone would need to carve their initials on a salad spinner.

boxex and boxes of twinkies and ding dongs in back of a hostess store.

'Most of all it's da funk!':
not the best ever, though the most recent 'super score':
a Parliament Funkadelic t-shirt, with a b'n'w image of George on the front of the tee, taken from the cover of 'Uncle Jam Wants You':
www.musicmatic.de/F/FunkadeCa.jpg

Seperated at Birth:
members.aol.com/stewa/grap...yWicker.jpg

And this discarded note, another recent 'score' of 'note':

"I like how old men and women stop caring about their appearance and how people think of them. My spanish teacher, Dr. Nagara, (63) would always complain about his hemmorhoids to the class."

The actual author of this gem misspelled hemorrhoids.

...a beautiful antique wooden "teacher" swivel chair. When I was totally ass-broke, I sold it to Wertz Bros. for $50 cash. It was worth much more. Also, a gold antique bracelet and first edition old weird books, and some other jewelry. People had dropped it off at a Good Will type dropoff and stuff was so overflowing, it was all over the parking lot. My friend scored a beautiful old painted dresser there. I'm always finding great one of a kind chairs, too. Another friend once found some stuff that must have been thrown out after people died. WWII matchbooks, photos, diaries, etc.

my favorite things have always been the things that i sort of put out the vibe for, and scored the same day or next. very practical things, usually... like, man, i need a philips head screwdriver. next day. bang. or a pair of scissors.

those are my favorite scores because they remind me of how the universe works (for me, at least).

for purely fun-factor, i've scored some damn good art. and a really cool... thingy that i can't really explain. an amazing book on the sun (which is a key topic of interest for me). various trinkets.

I found a *working* set of powered Yamaha studio Monitors in an alley by the dumpster. (!!)

1: A working (!) defibrillator and a prosthetic leg from the hospital dumpster in eugene oregon.
2: The Velvet Underground self titled LP from apartment complex dumpster in New Orleans.
3: A functional metal grinder/power sander in east oakland housing complex dumpster on my birthday.

First Post.

Dumpster diving is great. Great stuff for nothing more than a little bit of work and creativity. I've found packs of smokes, scrap metal (my favorite), tools, a microphone stand, a big bag full of computer games, and my other favorite, books.

ever read Burning Chrome? gomi no sensei (master of junk)

Current times: A fully functioning computer. When I was dumping trash for my old work, the hair salon 2 doors down threw out there old one to make way for the new one. Twas nice, but ended up giving it to a friend who needed 1. As a child, the ultimate adult collection for a preteen, musta been a home garbage can full of em. Now, I'd be yawning on that, but then...the ultimate prize.
Shadow Walker

1. complete brand new beer/wine brewing setup.
2. 15 PIII 900 computers.
3. 5 big boxes of terra chips, case of sweet potato mix, and 3 cases of soy milk behind some food expo.

ah.....in santa barbara i found a papazan chair and cushion and bunches of bikes (clothes and shoes too, in fact the only shorts i own came from the sb dumpster...........actually it was college kid garbage, they waste so much) when i was in nyc to protest the rnc i scored an "i heart nyc" bag with someone's name taged on it, and a box lamp with a martini glass on it (works). every food score is ALWAYS a good score, especially avocados.

recently, i was visiting my parents and was out walking my dog and found a beautiful orange bowling bag. i thought i had found a bowling ball, but inside were hundreds of vintage necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc all tangled up. so, i kept some beaded jewelry for the beads.........and i plan to share the love, maybe sell it super cheap (like 50 bones for the whole shabang)

my whole house (and myself) is furnished with dumpster duds. in fact, i plan to go to trader joe's tonight..........i'm all out of eats. see ya on the streets!

peace in the middle,
daNa

A set of golf clubs, clothes, towels and to many other things to list. Don't do it much any more as I tore up my knee jumping out of one once.

The best thing I bagged at the town dump was my husband.

We also furnished practically our whole house with castoffs. You see we worked there together and had first dibs on whatever came in and the people brought it to us. how cool is that. Sadly, we don't work there anymore and our dumpster diving has slowed down but heym he's the best thing I brought home from the dump.

Very best ever: I found my cat Gypsy and she's still with me 17 years and 13 moves later.

Most of the best things I've found, I no longer have, like an old Underwood typewriter. The rest is mainly clothing and bakery items. Once my sister (my housemate at the time) dumpstered a case of wine glasses. Half of them broke accidentally on our tile floor over several months and then one night we got drunk and broke the rest while recording the sound it made :-\

Red Cashmere coat

Lots of furniture, enough to furnish my new place. It was sitting in an apartment complex, thrown over next to the dumpster.

Still have most of it :D

Two bicycles (gave them both to friends)
Tons of records (some great Chinese ones as well as lots of 80s stuff)
Blender (just needed cleaning)
Toaster oven (same thing)
Countless lamps (easy to fix)
Desks
Chairs
Vintage electric organ (super difficult to move!)
Old Pacific Bell telephones (I still like them better than the wireless ones)
20+ boxed lunches from Whole Foods


I started out just going to thrift stores and "discount" grocery stores a lot, and then started picking stuff up off the sidewalk when kids would move out of their apartments at UC Davis, and now I actively hop into dumpsters whenever they look like they might have anything interesting in them.

My parents still think it's disgusting, but they appreciate that I'm keeping stuff out of landfills.

i got a few nice office chairs..the kind that you can raise and lower and swivel and shit. they are in great condition, and have found a home in my apartment. and some nice rugs. oooh and a wooden coffee table that was really nice, cept it had a little graffiti scratched on it, but whatever...i'll end up writing all over it myself anyway.


one time i got a shit load of odwalla bar boxes from a friend of a friend. who happened to score, of course, the mother lode shit load of them.

not all that, but it kept me tummy from doing the pirate when i needed portable mass that weas passable as a food.

One time my roomate and I were diving behind some posh bakery and some college students gave us 5 bucks. They thought we were a gay homeless couple. Later on, my room mate saw one of the guys in class (oops).

And the time we got a crate of really good root beer. mmm. sugar.

But the BEST? shiny plugs and other assorted titanium/stainless jewelry. Made my day.

i dumpstered a kitten once...i was at the city dump and i saw something move out of the corner of my eye. it was so weird! i called her dd: dumpster diver.

hey! im new! heh. but yeah...best thing ive ever found while dumpster diving.. well, i found an awesome grateful dead t-shirt, perfect condition, in my size :) and a bunch of cd's. A great mirror to go on my mantle in my living room...and yesterday i found two really cool peices of art. one was this.. red green and blue abstract thing, and the other was a winking sun, its really cool. the coolest thing ive found though i think, is a working dvd burner! woot.

Man, I've scored so much cool stuff, its hard to start! I found a whle dumpster full of boxes of fresh cherries and seedless watermelon- filled the whole car and trunk full and spent all day distrubuting it at the park... I think that score was in Seattle somewhere ... I also found a whole dumpster full of books in Seattle- it was a christian thrift shop that threw away any books that didn't have to do with religion... The best part was that there was a book store close by that bought used books, so I not only scored lots of great books, but made gas money along the way...
In Madison, WI, the college kds ditch out every year, and like dump everything on the curb... I mean like computers, brand new clothing, almost new furniture, bongs.. you name it.. You could fill carloads for days on end... a group gets together every year and throws together a free store though, and salvages a lot of it so not much goes to waste... hey by the way, if you haven;t yet, check out www.freecycle.org - this movement rocks!

a couple ounces of herb!

I found a P150 laptop and a carrying case for it. Just needed to reformat the hard drive and install Linux on it. It still works to this day.

200 pounds of organic hazelnut chocolate

200 pounds of crappy highly processed chocolate

roughly 40 pounds of posh chocolate truffles.

**Gross Alert**
I ate so many of these truffles that the next morning there was oil in my shit that pooled to the surface of the water. I don't even want to think about the bodily processes that failed for that to happen
*************

A whole refridgerator worth of Odwalla, so much that people in my house would open up a bottle of superfood and only drink 1/2, it was no big deal. One day I drank 2 liters of carrot juice.

At *least* 50 pounds of pesto. So much that every meal was pesto based for at least a week.

33 bottles of wine

a couple sacks of pomegranates

A fucking heeeeeuuuge sack of pine nuts. We froze them and they lasted for MONTHS

Right now there is a pastry shop by my house that is absolutely outstanding. It is second only to the swedish pastry shop in harajuku district, tokyo. You might say, well pastries are pretty run of the mill, but shit man these pastries are like holy-shit-out-of-control-outerspace pastries. We're talking organic 4$ muffins here. It's not even like dumpstering either. The trashcans are right next to the sidewalk and they always leave the pastry sack on top. It's really more like a buffet in heaven. This is but a small selection of what I've pulled out in the last week
*cinnamon chip scones
*sundried tomato basil bread (the kind that has a sundried tomato in every fucking bite)
*apple-mango danishes
*all sorts of berry muffins
*these spinach pastries that are without equal

++++

It's worth noting that many nights I(we) go out and find not a damn thing. We get chased out of lots or just spill garbage juice on ourselves. Dumpstering is probably the closest thing that modernites have to treasure hunting.

ps FUCK TRASH COMPACTORS TO THE VERY DEPTHS OF HELL!!!

Three boxes of canteloupes, all perfectly okay! I never did find out why they'd been thrown away, because they were perfectly edible. My breakfast was taken care of for a month, and I was still able to give some to friends and family.

I scored a redwood hot tub yesterday. And a ton of fresh bread. Last year I found 12 fire extinguishers and an adult size trike. Then I found fireworks. A picture of clinton and gore posing together for a bodybuilding shoot...

I was really craving donuts for a few hours and kept on passing coffee shops in Manhattan, but refused to spend money on one. I found a half-eaten donut in the trashcan... freshly thrown out. It was the most amazing thing I've ever tasted.

boxes and boxes of chocolate bunnies, peeps, bags of jelly beans, etc. in a walgreen's dumpster after easter. we had that candy for months. i used some of the jelly beans as ammo for a wrist rocket to scare off the pigeons that wanted to nest under the eaves next to my bedroom window.

The best thing I ever scored was my pet cat Smokey!

He was the best cat ever and lived to the ripe old age of 15. I could have never asked for a better pet. He was so funny, meowed like he was talking to me, if I responded he would meow again and he loved bread due to the fact that a kid up the street didn't like to eat crust on his PBJs.

R.I.P. Smokey...

cheers~
Jamaican Steve
THINKG BIG, live small...DSNT!

I dumpstered about 70 cans of concetrated juice that was thrown away b/c this place in west philly's friges went out. I used them to make about 13 gallons of homebrew. I ran out of air locks to cap the breing bottles w/ so I started using condems, they work well, but make sure you let the air out of them before they blow up of fly off!

All of it except for the 1.5 gallons of orenge juice came out. (I think that OJ didn't work b/c the acid killed the yeast). Many, many a drunken crust punk came out of those bottles!

I just dumpstered 2 dozen roses a few hours ago. that was pretty cool.

A New. brass and black enamel king size headboard and 4 down filled sofa cushions. I am going to turn them into body pillows... Rick

i occasionally score about 75 lbs of gourmet chocolate from a fancy lil candy store. then i throw on my cloak and ride the chocolate in the baskets of my bicycle around the east bay making deliveries.

gotta get the community their chocolate fix. they love it!

a working electronic toy drum kit, with batteries included.

a working toy electrig guitar, also w/ batteries.

both of these items saw a long and full lifetime after they'd been discarded.

Netierh of these was found 'diving' I just happened to be walking by and said, HEY NEAT! I never imagined either of them would still be functional much less have working batteries!

I just got an old 16mm movie projector. It needs to be taken apart and lubed up, but thats just as fun as scoreing it to me.

hundreds of 0dwalla juices and ice cream still frozen... on the same day! And boy was it hot!

The best thing is deffinately not my favorite thing. I found and recovered ,with a friend of mine, an entire dumpster full of pornography. I'm not talking a couple boxes, I mean a whole dumpster. Thousands of magazines flooded the apartment my friend was burdoned with. It took about an hour to get everything out of the dumpster, but it was worth it. I made a whole bunch of money off of some dudes that bought almost the entire lot. My favorite score is my bike, an '86 GT bmx bike.

i've gotten a few pretty kickass chairs. a punching bag that me and my friends turned into a found art piece. a wooden leg. and i SAW a set of encyclopedia britannicas as garbage in park slope but i wasnt gonna haul that back to manhattan...

a slingshot, two boxes of perfectley good odwalla juice drinks, a case of beer, and my army field jacket complete with the liner.

Huge fabric spindle, just the right height to sit next to my futon as a table. Utilitarian and industrially savvy.

I got a pair of skis out of a dumpster! I opened the dumpster and said, "NO SHIT!"
I gave them to a friend that loved to ski but didn't have their own pair.

welll, a bag of nugget and a boy with dreadlocks...

The guy I am currently seeing.. Now that was a Great find....

Ever scored? I couldn't say, but just recently, I got this great projection screen from a doctors office that, I believe, is from the late '60s- early 70's. It works perfectly well- tripod, retractible (black) screen, handle (for easy transporting!).

4 round trip plane tickets. Yep-- Wendy's (the fast food joint) put on a promotion with Air Tran-- you had to collect the coupons that were on their cups (I think it was 42 for a round trip ticket) and each person could get 2 round-trip tickets each. My boyfriend and I hit Wendy's dumpster everyday and we each got 2 free round-trip tickets, anywhere Air Tran flies. The best part is, during my trip on my dumpster plane ticket I got bumped off the plane, got put up in a fancy hotel, got free meal tickets, and 2 more round trip tickets!! Gotta love it.

working inkjet printer. i think it was thrown away because one of the cartridges was empty. got a lot of use out of it for over two years until something broke inside that couldn't be fixed. it was the second best printer I ever had.

A very comfortable footstool in a slightly ugly tan which I soon after recovered in bright orange velvety fabric. I'm also terribly fond of my steamer truck and the round table that now sits in the corner of my bedroom. Also- several giant clay pots which nearly killed me from dragging them home.

i once found a girl friend in the dumpster!!! she ahd been hardly used. but after a week i could se why someone had discarded her. sad to say i tooo had to leave her . head down and butt up in a dumpster looking for shiny shit!!!

Best thing I ever got was actually left free on the street. Someone left an old sewing table outside their store with a free sign on it - it's in really great shape and works well as a desk/sidetable. Besides that, the Naked Juice Dumpster in Seattle is the best thing ever, and it has tons of perfectly good Naked Juice all the time. :)

Apartment complexes have the best stuff out by the dumpsters around the first of the month. I've found bar stools, book shelves, sets of dishes, lamps, computer hardware, books, clothes, coffee tables, framed art work, weights, tools, propane and charcoal grills, camping stuff.........

Used to live over a produce warehouse and there was always fresh produce in the dumpster for easy pickings.

Wow, I have found a ton of good stuff at the dump. For a year a while back I was a legal Salvager at a busy transfer station the San Francisco area. I pulled just about anything you could imagineout of that place. Surf boards, scuba gear, very very nice purses that I sold on ebay for big returns. The best though, a local outdoor company dumped about 500 pounds last year models of backpacks, all brand new (50-200) a piece new. All of my friends still get backpacks for speical occasions. I also pulled about 5 pounds of bud out of the dump in the year I was there...incredible, I could go on and on.

a green peter-pan-esque fairie dance dress with leaves and streamers flowing all over it

Found all kinds of things , i dont always go though . i have found food caned food or produce( very selective here) i have found dollar general stuff all kinds one time found like 5 new stand fans still in boxes i hocked them all fer like 10 bucks a peice . i have found new glass pyrex bowls , i have found candy good and bad !, writein paper magazines ect.lamps and once a bunch of antique radios and parts mostly sold some , a large victorian chair ect.a working laptop ( needed power supply).kids books and coloring books recent new lots of mainline vch video movies . Antique leather boxed set of playing cards ( double deck) with man of war the race horse ( 40s very collectable in mint shape). way too much stuff to list here ok sooooo. noo i dont have it all just a peice er two now

My parakeet, Maggie. No lie, someone threw her in a dumpster cage and all.

tons of red fuses (road flares). linesman belts(to sell on ebay).

an entire pick-up truck bed full of organic produce...picked up on a weekly basis :-)

ahn sometime it doesn't hurt to ask...I made arrangement with a distributer to take their extra off their hands...nothing better than having oddles of free veggies in your living room and the faces of visitor when they come in and see...and learn that it was all free...I live in a co-op so we end up taking what we need and distributing the rest...

and someone gave me some amateur porn shots from a photo dumpster...I guess they have throw those out...but gosh what a collection I could have if I worked there... ;-)

DHC Makeup in the dumpster behind plant in San Francisco

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

when i lived in boston, my entire apartment was furnished from dumpsters and trash piles. i had this -stunning- orange crushed velvet easy chair... ah, my butt misses that beautiful chair...

boston really ruled for trash scores during the internet bubble. i'd imagine the pickings were even better on the west coast, though.

Love is the law, love under will.

I pull brand new stuff out of dumpsters all them time. heck most of what i am wearing is from dumpsters and its not cheap crap. pulled brand new clothes with tags in the boxes for my girlfriend, countless electronics, man I should be crowned king of this!