Dumpster diving (DD), is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded for being unusable by their owners, but may be useful to the Dumpster diver. The practice of Dumpster diving is also known variously urban foraging, binning, alley surfing, D-Mart, Dumpstering, garbaging, garbage picking, garbage gleaning, skip-raiding, skip diving, skipping, skipweaselling, tatting, skallywagging, or trashing. Garbing, on the other hand, is when you throw something into the garbage. The term originates from the best-known manufacturer of commercial trash bins, "Dumpster" and the fanciful image of someone leaping head first into a dumpster as if a swimming pool. In practice, the size and design of most dumpsters to easily accept trash, also make it possible to retrieve many items from the outside of dumpster without having to "dive" inside. Dumpster Divers can range anywhere from people just walking by, to riding bicycles with panniers, to pushing push carts, to driving trucks, and more. In rural areas and some ancient agricultural societies, DD was similarly called gleaning and some medieval houses had "poor boxes" where still edible food was placed for the poor to take.
Here are some websites devoted to Dumpster Diving
http://www.dumpsterdiving.net/
http://www.wikihow.com/Dumpster-Dive
http://members.aol.com/TheDumpsterLady/thedumpsterlady.htm
Have you ever been dumpster diving? If so, what's the best item ever scored?
2 comments:
Hanging out at closing time near the Burger King or Mac and Don's Supper Club always yielded some good eats, especially if you tore off some of those old dried out buns and stacked the meat and fixin's together to make a mountain of a hamburger.
It is with this knowledge, taught by her parents, my daughter survived while wandering the west coast on her last fling before giving up childhood and becoming and adult. We remind her of her "Dumpster Diving" days, and now her own children are old enough to understand the concept and they laugh at her like we do. It's great fun to acknowledge an earlier time and how you survived it.
I have had many jobs, one of which was a garbage truck driver. As the garbage man, you got first pick of discarded treasure. Many a good chair or lamp, window fan or bookshelf was spared from the crushing jaws of the Heil as they were taken from from the alley and put to good use in my home, after a little cleanup, of course.
Thanks for the memories.
Peace to All.
Sweet stories. Thanks for sharing them.
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