Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

I’ve been thinking about the concept of ”Freeganism” so much recently, that I just had to find out what one could find with no experience, and no preparation, peeking into some area dumpsters for the thrill.  So I called my cousin Nick, and we spent Monday evening dumpster diving, expecting to find nothing and pleased with the treasure from our first hunt.

The Dean (right) with his cousin Nick.
Photo courtesy of here.

We spent a total of two hours, and probably about a gallon of gas, driving to area dumpsters.  We found a working 19 inch TV with a built in DVD player, an original Nintendo, a Playstation with an added hard-drive, some gaming system dance mats, Christmas ornaments, a piece of pottery (slightly broken), those things you use to put baseball caps in the washer, a Gameboy game, a Will Ferrell Saturday Night Live DVD, tennis balls, a hat, and a large speaker in a box.

One dumpster had literally hundreds of t-shirts.  They needed to be washed—and we didn’t really feel like contending with them—but I’m wondering why the store didn’t at least donate them.  It just seems like such a waste!

We didn’t really study the labels on the over-the-counter medication—but perhaps we could have scored some pain relief pills, too.  We also found a few dozen loaves of perfectly usable bread, but we weren’t hungry.

I kept the TV/DVD, put the pot in my yard as a landscaping accent, and Nick’s going to try his luck with the rest on eBay.

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.