68 Wild Dumpster Finds That Prove One Person’s Trash Really Is Another Person’s Treasure

While not a garbage man my uncle worked at the facility they take the trash too. He's worked there for over 15 years, Some of the memorable things that I can think of off the top of my head are dvds, video game systems, sports cards, guitar amplifiers, and he even once found a brand new Jeep edition 10 man camping tent. It was a beast.

In the early 2000's when I was poorer I used to go dumpster diving for computer equipment. We found dozens of working or barely broken computers just 1 generation old, even found a couple essentially working current generation computers. Bad repair shops would throw out so much working stuff it was absurd. I taught myself a lot about computers from the experiences of reclaiming those parts, probably more than I learned getting a degree a few years later.

We once were stopped by the cops loading equipment into our car. We explained they had thrown it out, there wasn't a posted no trespassing sign, and the dumpster wasn't locked so as far as we were aware what we were doing was not only legal but a public service. He helped is load the equipment into our car. I don't know that I'd still go dumpster diving, but I sure have a lot of good memories from doing so.

Some jerk hid 2 front end car springs in a bin on my round once. The jaw cycles & BBANG! Something ruffles my hair as we duck. We both peer inside, nothing obvious, just some metal bits. Thats when the springs come back down, one through someone's car rear window about 40 yards back & the other bounces off a bus stop.

DONT PUT BIG SPRINGS IN YOUR BIN! THEY GET PUT IN A GIANT COMPRESSOR !

I'm not a garbage man, but my father was back when I was a kid. After years of that, we had perfectly functional TVs, VCRs, game systems, stereo systems, movies, and games that you'd never know were found in the garbage.

My dad worked for city works and he told me about calls he got from customs about needing to dump things that got into the country illegally. One i remember was half a million fake Bic pens.

not a garbage man. but I found a brand new Iphone 6s still in its case with its protector sticker on the screen and everything in it in the recycling bin.

Not a garbage man, but under the media school, there was constantly a pile of equipment that was being thrown out due to updates. Some of this stuff was in perfect condition and could still be used. I'm talking about several thousand dollar vacuum tube preamps used for public radio, film cameras that could be used for indie films, HD cameras with all the equipment with it.

My interesting find was big electrical equipment. Transformers that could easily be kettlebells they are so heavy, capacitors the size of small paint cans (which I guarantee will never be messed around with. Don't mess with capacitors, kids!), diodes as big as 2 packs of playing cards.

Not a garbage man, but I use to live by a gated community and I knew the gate code. Every Sunday night they would put out their trash. I would drive in there with my truck after dark and collect the goods. Lawnmowers, working flat-screens, patio furniture, tools, nightstands, dressers... All usually in pretty good shape.

In Hawaii, there's "bulky item pickup days" where you leave all your items too large to throw away on the curb and the collecters scoop them up. Every time the rich neighborhoods have it, we stop by and scoop up slightly broken tvs, working microwaves, printers that ran out of ink, and pants. Why pants? They're a gold mine. Rich idiots throw them out without even checking the pockets.

Some highlights were: (Note all items were dirty and needed cleaning)

60ish" flatscreen. No remote. The only thing wrong with it was they jacked the contrast up to maximum. Once we turned it down, we were gold.

3 fully working laptops so far. I still have 1 acer for a "bot computer" when I want to access shady sites or download sketchy things

Nice Walet ~ $300 cash. ID, Credit Cards, everything. It was in some guys pants. We obviously knew where the guy lived so we went back the next day to return the cards (turns out he already canceled them).

Ultra high precision mirrors, spectrometers? (the things that break light into individual frequencies), and other optical pieces. I broke most of them messing around with them but I still have some cool stuff from that find.

$100 blender. Only remember it because they bent the metal part you stick in the plug and decided it was too broken to fix

Countless TVs. Every run we try to bring home 2 40"+ flascreens. We leave everything else

A 70" rear projection TV. We didn't take the TV, just the screen. It's basically a giant magnifying glass which can be used to focus the sun and get crazy high temperatures in a small area.

A spool of coper wire. I mean really?

Air hockey table. We owned it until the pores cloged and we gave it away.

Ill update if I remember more.

A bicycle seat made with titanium rails. It was uncomfortabke as hell and I eventually threw it out.

Also a one of those little dentist sinks. At a park.

Not exactly a garbage man, but I work in thrift store. The place where you bring you old stuff is essentialy a cleaner dump.

We get all kinds of things: leftover stuff from bankrupt stores, computer parts, a surprising amount of katana's (for some reason), that kind of thing. The coolest hting I've seen there was when some colleauges were sent to collect stuff from an antique shop. We got some really cool old furniture from that - it sold for quite a high amount, too.

A handmade crossbow and a Japanese sword are on my list.

Not a "garbage man" (what's the technical term for that job anyway?) but my family frequently enjoys "trash picking"; especially when towns have big spring cleaning events.
We've found paintings that were hung in museums (one is worth $2500) and washer and dryers that are brand new. Like, still have the paper inside them brand new. Computers, antiques, grills, furniture... You name it. My cousin had a booth at an antique store and I made her $100 because I picked an old sewing machine. Same cousin and I also dug out an antique doctors table. Complete with a sink for spitting (doctors used to pull teeth too) and stirrups for the gals, lol. We also got the accompanying medical cabinet out of the dumpster.
It's crazy what people will throw out.

I work in recycling and you wouldn't believe the amount of cash my coworkers have found. Also everything else that shouldn't be recycled.

Not me, but my brother was a garbage man in high school/college summers. He found a huge box of about 100 old N64 and PS2 games. Took 'em home and most of them worked!

I'm not a garbage man but I worked for one ONE day through a temp service. I found a laptop. But what really pissed me off is I dumped the trash into the back. Operated the compactor and a bunch of CDs started sliding down. I had just crushed 150+ PS3 games.

I wish I had seen it prior because you bet your britches I would've kept them all.

Not a garbage man but...

My stepdad was, around christmas he found loads of unopened toys in the trash, we usually donated them.

He also found a tool set, with thousands of dollars in tools, he kept those lol.

I found an (essentially) working Atari 2600. I was just walking down my street and it was there next to the rubbish...

Dumpster diving was a thing when I was in college. We all knew when people put their trash out, and on those days, we would basically go shopping. I had a perfectly fine love seat and a cabinet that came from dumpster diving.

VW BUG. Winched it into the back of the truck. Made an extra 100 bucks.