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I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

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Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#51

Post by nappy-doo »

I went to the local state school, and had an apartment off campus. At the end of the school year, we'd go dumpster diving, and get all the stuff thrown out. We would take orders from people before going – generally things like TVs, VCRs, tapes, books for classes, etc.

In the first dumpster, you should get a couple of backpacks, rucksacks, and a broom handle (to aid in digging). We'd find all kinds of things. Books we'd resell, lots of porn, lots of perfectly good clothing. It was great.

The best thing we ever found was a giant projection TV (it was the 90s) outside a frat. We took it home, and it turned out the TV had been rained on, and a few discrete components needed to be fixed in the low-voltage section. A couple trips to Radio Shack, and we had a massive frat TV (it was a pain to move it). We went back to the frat a couple of days after we had fixed it, and asked them for the remote. They chased us off.

Dumpster diving in college towns is definitely something the townies do.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#52

Post by bryanmgreen »

So many campaigns for recycle… but not enough on the two more important pieces - Reduce and Reuse.

Over the years I have refurbed some furniture which is a fun hobby in addition to being environmentally helpful.

I think it’s also worthwhile to pay for higher quality items that are made well and last. A nice pair of leather boots can get repaired for minimal cost and mine have lasted over a decade of very hard wear.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#53

Post by dml2135 »

dekhn wrote: post #16
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #9

townies in university cities have been dumpstering during move-out week since time immemorial. i remember finding an entire complete set of MS Office 9x on floppies in a dumpster when i was in 5th grade :) among many other things over the years. even once found what would have been a treasure trove of 'adult' videos only 5 years prior... 8 hour vhs bootlegs with 3-4 "films" each. but that was 2007ish and VCRs were mo…

My parents did (and still do this) at a little ivy in the northeast. I got some good stuff including an introductory Grateful Dead CD (this was ~35 years ago). My dad would joke that all the graduates would throw away their tie-dye shirts and go to work on wall street (not completely a joke). Now we have an entire closet filled to the brim with used water bottles and I have to periodically clean through tons of stuff…

> My dad would joke that all the graduates would throw away their tie-dye shirts and go to work on wall street (not completely a joke).

I had a friend in college that did literally this. Guy sold weed throughout his time there. While he was a senior, his supplier who had graduated a year earlier hooked him up with an internship at his company's trading desk. Went to work on Wall St after graduation.

I was always amused that the marijuana business was more important to his career after school than his studies (I think he was an environmental systems major). He's a commodities trader now, which is fitting.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#54

Post by dml2135 »

I remember that my school rented out mini-fridges to students. It was about $150 to rent a dingy, used fridge for the year. The cost to buy a similar fridge was about $100. So of course, students would buy fridges, then discard them at the end of the year. Piles and piles of mini-fridges.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#55

Post by ty6853 »

lesuorac wrote: post #50
ty6853 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is cheaper to buy a new one than pay someone to fix most of those. A fairly significant minority of wealthy people got that way because they have no free time to do those things themselves.

It's also often cheaper to treat many durable items as disposable. i.e. buy a power washer each-ish time you need it compared to hiring somebody.

That's exactly what I did when I built my house.

$6k in labor for some part of the project vs $300 tools from harbor freight, who gives a fuck if the tool only lasts a few hours, I don't have time to sell it nor place to store it.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#57

Post by lostmsu »

saulrh wrote: post #31

Works even if you're not in a college town. I once pulled a $4000 set of speakers out of my building's trash room - Boston Dynamics floor speakers, Polk Audio subwoofer - and I was just in a random apartment building in the bay area. Turned out the tweeter on one of the speakers needed replacing but that was like a $40 part on eBay and ten minutes of work with a screwdriver, didn't even need a soldering iron. You can…

> Turned out the tweeter on one of the speakers needed replacing

How much time it took to figure that out, and what is the chance the thing would turn out unsalvageable?

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#58

Post by alnwlsn »

ty6853 wrote: post #44
alnwlsn wrote: post #39

It's not just students. Where I live (admittedly wealthy) people throw away everything they can't be bothered to do the slightest bit of maintenance on. I have found, and made functional: - a snow blower - various weed eaters - vacuum cleaners - a generator (higher capacity than the one I already had) - a log splitter - pressure washers (nozzles usually clogged with dirt) - a chainsaw - multiple typewriters (the Sele…

Because it is cheaper to buy a new one than pay someone to fix most of those. A fairly significant minority of wealthy people got that way because they have no free time to do those things themselves.

Sure, but these people aren't wealthy enough that they still need to buy these machines (vs paying for a service to come in with their own stuff). I'm sure being able to afford new is a factor, but I also see a breakdown in ability to do basic repairs.

You would think the 3 minutes it takes to realize your pressure washer nozzle is clogged and poke it with a stick a few times to clear it and get back to the job at hand is a better time value over stopping, going inside, searching for a new one to buy....

A lot of the time the stuff isn't even broken, it's just old. They definitely will go and buy a new one if the old one "looks rusty" or something.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#59

Post by lsllc »

tdeck wrote: post #15

Move out waste is a huge thing. At my alma mater in 2014 they had some program where you could leave things in the common room and they would be collected and supposedly donated. I remember spending extra time cleaning my (good quality) things that I couldn't bring with me, and then the next day seeing everything had just been bagged up and dumped into 2 large dumpsters.

The problem is that move-out happens in May, but move-in happens in late Aug/early Sept. So there's lots of useful stuff being discarded in May (beds, desks, bookcases, in-window A/C units etc) that would likely be in demand in Sept but have long been sent to the landfill by then.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#60

Post by dkarl »

ty6853 wrote: post #44
alnwlsn wrote: post #39

It's not just students. Where I live (admittedly wealthy) people throw away everything they can't be bothered to do the slightest bit of maintenance on. I have found, and made functional: - a snow blower - various weed eaters - vacuum cleaners - a generator (higher capacity than the one I already had) - a log splitter - pressure washers (nozzles usually clogged with dirt) - a chainsaw - multiple typewriters (the Sele…

Because it is cheaper to buy a new one than pay someone to fix most of those. A fairly significant minority of wealthy people got that way because they have no free time to do those things themselves.

Often, when something breaks, I think I might enjoy tinkering with it and trying to fix it, but it feels like a luxury I can't afford. Hiring someone to fix it is a luxury that I can sometimes afford. It's one of those things that feels right, but you're also aware that it's a flex because you're embodying moral values celebrated by your social class, which people below your social class happen to not be able to afford to embody. But it's definitely a weaker flex than being able to take the time to fix it myself.
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