General > General Technical Chat

I died a little inside today.

<< < (12/30) > >>

megahz:
Yea, im fine with taking old useless equipment out of people's trash bins, but if its still working expensive stuff I fell likes its even more serious

TerraHertz:

--- Quote from: c4757p on April 05, 2013, 12:37:57 am ---It's a bit sad that it's happening in Australia - I hate seeing people get more restrictive with that kind of stuff - but that attitude is common in the US. It's not public property because it wasn't released explicitly to the public. TBH I'm not sure whether or not I agree with that, but it is certainly how I and most people I know were raised.

--- End quote ---

In my childhood times, there were virtually no restrictions on scavenging in council rubbish tips. Many happy childhood hours I spent playing in a couple of local tips. So much interesting stuff! It was actually how I got my start in electronics - by bringing home old radios, TVs, and sometimes more technical stuff, then pulling it apart and making things from the bits. This was age around 8 to 12 or so. (My family was poor btw.)
Then council tips got all lawyerish, and banned scrounging. No trespassing, and also they made sure to bulldoze everything dumped that day before the staff left. It was very sad to see.

One of the most outrageous examples of widespread waste in our society, is supermarket dumping. Most people are not aware just how much perfectly good food supermarkets throw out, because they keep their dumpsters in secure areas that aren't even visible to the public.

But once some friends and I were on a car trip to go rock climbing in Mt Arapiles, western Vic. We happened to stop in a country town called Ararat, Vic, to buy some food for the week's camping. For some reason the supermarket here had their dumpster off to the side, in plain view and unlocked. Out of curiosity we had a look, being all for dumpster diving. Riches! It was a very large dumpster, filled to the brim with food. All kinds - everything from a large supermarket. Everything from sacks of potatoes to gourmet cheeses. Piles of tinned food, rice, vegetables, fruit.... All of it near or just over expiry dates. Potato sacks with a few eye shoots on some, fruit with maybe a tiny bruise, tins with dents or torn labels...
We literally filled up my station sedan so there was barely room to sit. Ate like kings for the next week.

Every supermarket does this, everywhere, every day. While in other places people starve to death (and some here are pretty damned hungry too.) But markets can't give the food away, due to the expiry date and legal liability. And it might cut their profits, through some lost sales.
F*ck the law, I say.

Funniest dumpster diving story: a friend of mine for a while lived near a factory in Marrickville that baked a large fraction of the donuts and cakes for Sth Sydney. He found their dumpster was where they disposed of the 'defective' product from each night's baking. Emptied every day, so it was all freshly baked. For a year we had a limitless supply of fresh donuts and cakes. Who cares if the icing was slightly asymmetrical, or whatever? The only small problem was that bees also discovered this dumpster full of icing and sugary glazed cakes. So getting the boxes of confections out was a bit like robbing honey from a bee hive.
Mmmmm.. I can still smell that dumpster. It was delicious.

c4757p:
That's just pathetic. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable taking expensive stuff from the trash but the lawyers can go to hell. The food dumping is especially bad.

c4757p:

--- Quote from: TerraHertz on April 05, 2013, 01:12:24 am ---Funniest dumpster diving story: a friend of mine for a while lived near a factory in Marrickville that baked a large fraction of the donuts and cakes for Sth Sydney. He found their dumpster was where they disposed of the 'defective' product from each night's baking. Emptied every day, so it was all freshly baked. For a year we had a limitless supply of fresh donuts and cakes. Who cares if the icing was slightly off, or whatever? The only small problem was that bees also discovered this dumpster full of icing and sugary glazed cakes. So getting the boxes of confections out was a bit like robbing honey from a bee hive.

--- End quote ---

Nicking equipment from the trash is boring enough for me not to really care, but OK, that's a nice little adventure right there.  :-+

lemmegraphdat:
I'm so lucky. All I got to do is get a slip and two signatures and I can take all kinds of things like input output boards and motor control boards. Got a 90's computer with a bad hard drive. I have a box of stuff sitting at work cause I have more than I can handle at home now.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod