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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Garbage Picking
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
Each garbage night, pick-up trucks patrol my neighborhood, and the drivers fill up with items being discarded by my neighbors. I have always had a bit of an interest in the garbage picker, but I have never really had the urge to pick up someone’s garbage myself. All that changed this week, as I took someone’s garbage home for the first time.
My new house has a screened in patio, and it is rather large. I inherited a hand-me-down table and four chairs, but I also had another table with no chairs to go with it. That lonely table has been sitting on my porch all winter.
I started eyeballing prices on cheap plastic chairs. The least expensive ones are about eight bucks. So, I’ve been waiting until I felt like I had an extra $35 dollars or so to buy four chairs for my patio.
But the other night, while driving home, my wife saw that someone was throwing away six outdoor chairs: four matching white ones, two matching green ones with higher backs, and three little outdoor tables. Since I’ve been watching prices, I knew we were talking about close to $60 worth of product.
So we popped the trunk and became garbage pickers.
A few moments later, one of those pick-up trucks rolled past—so we knew we had just barely gathered out treasure before the weekly scouts would have nabbed it.
The next day, after some paper towels, some Fantastic, and some Mr. Clean magic erasers, the four white chairs are looking just fine. A bit used, perhaps, but perfectly suitable. If I had more patience with cleaning, I could probably make them look even closer to new.
The green chairs—well, a bit of a different story. I think the people actually painted the chairs green, instead of just buying green chairs. So I haven’t yet decided if those are salvageable. When I tried to clean them, the green started wiping off. And I would definitely rather buy new ones than strip the paint off these old ones. So maybe the pick-up scouts will get some of those chairs after all.
It’s weird, though, looking out on my newly furnished back porch admitting to myself that I’m a garbage picker. But now I have somewhere to sit, and it didn’t cost me a dime.
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26 Apr 2008 at 05:06 pm | #
Call it recycling and give yourself a big pat on the back. After all, you delayed the inevitable trip to the landfill by a couple years.
If it’s any consolation I did the same thing several years ago with a little bar fridge. The former owners obviously weren’t technical enough to diagnose a bad thermostat. $20 for the part and a few hours with a hose and a bottle of Clorox, and it looked new. Replaced the nightstand on my wife’s side of the bed with it. She says it was real handy for those 3AM feedings back when the kids were little.
26 Apr 2008 at 05:14 pm | #
That’s what we told my five year old, who was rather curious by the whole adventure. But he is already fascinated by landfills and recycling, so he was thrilled to become a recycling man for a second!
(Is the trip inevitable? If I put them on the curb, will the pick-up scouts get them?)
26 Apr 2008 at 08:47 pm | #
There is a website for people posting things they don’t want for others to pick up for free. Kind of FreeBay.
http://www.freecycle.org They have groups all over the country.
27 Apr 2008 at 08:04 am | #
Garbage picking can be an excellent investigative tool. The Supreme Court has ruled that curbed trash is public domain.
http://www.anchoragepress.com/site/basicarticle.asp?ID=214
You can learn a lot about a person’s through sifting through their garbagbe.
Sadly, people with the wrong intentions are picking garbage and securing private information such as social security numbers for the purpose of identity theft.
There should be a special place in hell for those types.
There is nothing wrong with what the Dean of Cincinnati did because he can use the chairs and save them from a garbage dump.
An insurance company who is paying disablity benefits to someone who is working on the side in violation of the disability policty certainly has the right to pay an investigator to do a background investigation on the activities of the disabled. This may include garbage sifting which may provide information about a business venture and/or employment.
A landlord who is having difficulty collecting rent can sift through the garbage to find the tenant can afford beer & cigarettes, but not rent.