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68 Wild Dumpster Finds That Prove One Person’s Trash Really Is Another Person’s Treasure
We’ve all heard that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. But have you ever taken the time to investigate that claim for yourself? Most of us aren’t brave enough to hop into a dumpster or ride along in a garbage truck to see what’s out there, but those who are have plenty of stories to tell.
Sanitation workers and dumpster divers of Reddit have been recalling the wildest and most impressive finds they’ve ever discovered in the trash. Enjoy reading through these stories that might inspire you to start checking out your local garbage bins, and be sure to upvote the ones that you can’t believe are true!
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#1
I run my towns transfer station and recycling center. The amount of perfectly good or even brand new stuff I see thrown out daily is absurd. I collect and restore antique radios so one of my personal favorites was a Thomas Edison phonograph from 1906. I have a 55" Samsung in my living room I got from work guy wanted a smart TV and just canned the old one. I even have a decent size trailer cause some guy couldn't be bothered to sell it.
Also the money you save is amazing if you have mechanical and/or electrical knowledge. I've never had to buy lawnmowers or snow blowers weed wackers etc even things like shovels garden tools hoses. Microwave dies? One will come in at work in a few days. It sounds horrible to say but when someone's parent dies is the best cause they just bring all their stuff to the dump.
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#2
My father retired from the Department of Sanitation in NY a few years ago... When I was younger, somebody had thrown out an Xbox 360 and so he brought it home for me (it was in a clear, plastic bag). Sometimes he would even find video games for the 360 and bring those home as well. I remember once he had brought home Rainbow Six: Vegas.
DennyS (denzoren) 2 hours ago
Throwing it out while it still worked is wild but glad OP got it and some games.
#3
I worked at a dump for the local council and we have a free E-waste service for dumping all electrical items which was a big thing seeing as general waste is $300 a ton.. Tv's, computers, phones, you name it we took it. Our lunchroom had a big screen tv with surround sound and a lot of the good stuff was exchanged for beer to the garbos who would come check daily what we had.. also we legally owned all material on any PC or SD card, think I had 20 at one point.. so smash your laptops before throwing them away guys.. ps first post ever:).
Janissary35680 2 hours ago
Just "smashing" the laptop won't get rid of the data it contains. You need to make HDs, SD cards, and all other components capable of retaining data physically unreadable. The same principle applies to mobile phones, tablets, etc.
#4
Weirdest- A whole, skinned sheep head. A GIGANTIC, filthy adult toy. Entire rooms full of furniture. (We called them "Move-out piles", because it looked like the people were moving out of the house and just threw everything away.) 18 large trash bags of brand-name clothing, at the same house, three weeks in a row. (18 each week.)
Coolest- a big box of brand-new Rolling Rock Beer embossed metal signs, which I sold on Ebay for almost $400. Two beautiful 1950s pastel-colored sewing machines, one turquoise, one coral pink, with all their accessories. 12 working VCRs (This was in 2002, so DVD players were taking over).
My loader, a month before I started driving, found two antique baseball cards. They were the small ones from cigarette packs, and were worth several thousand dollars. He found them in the hopper, so he had no way of knowing which house they had come from, and no one ever claimed them.
#5
Probably a $100 big black office chair with a tear on it, found some black tape taped it up works fine. Also found a bench press with 120 lbs of weight in near mint condition just out on the curb.
#6
My sister's boyfriend is a garbage man and he found a whole Wii system with a bunch of rechargeable remotes and the charging station. All in perfect condition.
They also tend to find a lot of really expensive perfumes.
Upstaged75 7 hours ago
Probably because people think perfume is a good gift but it gets tossed out when the giftee doesn't like it.
#7
Food. Perfectly fine food. I've worked at a major retailer in the UK as a warehouse guy. We are the ones that have the awful job of throwing away day-old food in those wheelie bins.
I saw awful because, 90% of the food is perfectly fine - like i would eat it.
They keep a lot of meat in higher temps and thus the sell by dates are not as long as they would be if they were in a proper freezer. It was ridiculous. Stupid thing was, company policy prohibited us from giving it away or taking it for ourselves.
DennyS (denzoren) 2 hours ago
A lot of places throw food away. I never knew what happened until I knew some one in a bakery that explained to me everything was made fresh daily (the gave their leftovers to the homeless after every day which was nice).
#8
I used to do recycling outreach for my city and worked closely with the drivers. Things I have collected from cans, neighborhood cleanup piles: dozens of bicycle wheels and tires, several complete bikes, tons of books, tons of lumber and tools. And the craziest thing I've taken home, a working treadmill. I still have it.
#9
I saw a lady toss a couple hundred records on the side of the road about 25 years ago. I hit the brakes, she said 'Take them if you want!' Not being a moron, I did.
I still wonder if her husband came home that day to a 'surprise'. She seemed a bit upset. It was loaded with tons of classics.
#10
When I was younger, a family friend worked as a garbage man in a ritzy shopping town, and he let me ride with him a few times. (This probably wasn't legal, would not recommend.)
I still have the perfectly-working electric sander and air compressor we found in someone's garbage. I guess a lot of it was wives telling husbands to get rid of stuff in the garage. I also got a working backpack leaf blower in this way from someone's front yard. I asked the guy why he was giving it away and he said his wife was making him. I don't get why people throw away functional things.
#11
I'm not a garbage man nor a dumpster diver, but I have made a few decent finds over the years. Some lcd monitors when they were still pretty expensive, a big UPS which just needed a new battery, etc.
The most interesting was a firemans SCOTT pack. They are kinda like scuba but for use by fireman. I passed it along to a friend of mine who was a firefighter. Come to find out it went missing several years earlier from one of the fire stations a couple counties over. They were very interested in where I found it.
#12
I do junk removal on the side and a lady insisted on getting rid of a diamond necklace. We got it appraised, its value was $5000.
#13
My dad was a garbage man about 8 years ago and he found an old gameboy color with Pokemon yellow. We were broke and living in a fifth wheel at the time so this was awesome for 10 year old me.
#14
Not a garbage man but a few years ago during a council clean up in my town (Sydney, Australia) I managed to dig up an old Super Nintendo and a few games, worked perfectly.
#15
Soooo many toys. Lego out the wazoo, enough nerf blasters for a whole neighborhood of kids. That's the normal stuff.
The weird. Prosthetic limbs. Police light bars. Art?
Elladine DesIsles 7 hours ago
Um, my kid will take the police light bars. He'll know the make, model, and quite possibly the date on sight, and be able to get them working, too.
#16
Many of my first computers came out of dumpsters. Often times there was absolutely nothing wrong, the company just upgraded and into the dumpster the old one went. Rarely did I find something that was totally beyond repair, and even then I could salvage parts.
#17
Not a garbage collector but I once was helping a friend move in to a new apartment and it appeared that one of the room mates never moved out, so all his stuff was just dumped in a big pile on the side of the house. There was a lot of baseball cards, Derek Jeter, Bo Jackson, ARod (all rookies and some multiple rookies), a signed Magic Johnson card from the early 90's, some pretty ok furniture. Literally looked like all his stuff just got dumped out.
The weirdest thing was that there was a file box with some letters from a girl, family pictures, some nice jewelry and the kids PASSPORT...what? I searched for him online and found nothing, and dropped the passport off at the police station and asked them to contact me if the found out anything so I could give him his stuff back...never heard a thing, still have the "important" stuff in case.
#18
My dad runs a janitorial company, sometimes he finds cool stuff. Just last week he pulled 8 brand new Lenovo keyboards out of the trash. One of the offices must have upgraded computers, but not needed the keyboards that came with them. I’m gonna see if I can sell them even though they’re pretty cheap. Don’t really care how much I make on them as long as they’re out of the landfill.
#21
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.
#22
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.
#23
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 !
#24
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.
#25
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.
#26
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.
#27
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.
#28
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.
Geoffrey Scott 1 hour ago
College 'move out' week is also pretty lucrative. Grills, golf clubs, etc...
#29
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.
#30
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.
#31
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.
#33
In my ten years in the waste industry, the craziest things I've see and heard of being found are $400 in cash and a half pound of illegal substances. It's really common to see electronics like newish tv's, coffee makers, game consoles, power tools etc that have either nothing at all wrong with them or some easily fixable problem. That's not to mention all of the stuff that could be donated like clothes, footwear, and canned, non perishable food. The job really highlights how much of a throw away culture we live in.
#34
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.
#35
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.
#36
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!
#37
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.
#38
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.
#39
I found an (essentially) working Atari 2600. I was just walking down my street and it was there next to the rubbish...
#40
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.
#42
When I lived in Berkeley (UC Berkeley), the winter and summer break was like a mad frenzy to get as much stuff that kids, who haven't learned the value of a dollar, would just throw away!
Sometimes it would get a little wooly as gangsters from other east bay towns would come by to scavenger as well, but pretty much everyone who went out looking on those last few days of school would find some good stuff.
Best single item I ever scavenged would have to be a Gibson J-60 guitar that had probably been dropped from the top of a dresser or something. A noticeable crack on the top of the body and minor crushing on one of the corners. It cost 70$ to have it fixed.
It now sounds like heaven. I've been told that model, brand new, goes for about 2 grand. Unfortunately, the gorgeous hard case that model comes with was not to be found, but I could hardly complain, eh?
I can't even count the number of tables, bookcases (nice ones, not just stuff "BILLY" boxes from IKEA) recliners and computer towers we took in and re-housed.
darn, Sometimes I miss living there.
#43
My dad is a UPS guy that delivers to an apartment building in DC. People throw out all kinds of furniture just because they don't have room to take it. My favorite thing he has brought home is a 4ft tall cat tree.
#44
used to be a garbage men a few years ago. coolest thing i found was at the local cinema, it was a very large movie poster( like 5 meters wide) from battlefield los angeles made out of vinyl in perfect condition, sadly it couldnt fit inside of the truck without damaging it:( also found a telescope once(broken).
#45
Two full-sized green trash bags filled with large taxidermied birds, like we're talking pheasants, partridges, and some roosters which were posed like they were fighting, with the little metal spurs and everything. I didn't have room to keep them all, nor did I want to, but I kept the best-looking pheasant and gave it to my mom, who was equal parts amused and nonplussed by the thing. And she still has it after all these years!
#46
Foreclosure clean out where it was all piled up at the curb...bags and bags of new with the tags still on clothes, shoes, coats. One bag was junk drawer stuff with a ton of expired, uncashed, checks...one in the $10,000+ range. I was like who gets a check for that amount and just shoves it in a drawer to expire?
Second was someone's ashes. Not an "oops". Pretty obvious from the label on the box and the big TRASH written beside it that they legit didn't want them and didn't know what to do with them. Took them home and put them on my hill with an awesome view of the sunset. Because...what the hell?.
#47
I briefly worked for a guy cleaning out foreclosed homes. Pretty sad, a lot of them looked like they left for work in the morning and never came back. I found a bunch of newer Star Wars figures, a copy of Halo 2, and a sweet electric bass with built-in effects. As well as the absolute nastiest, disgusting deep-freezers and refrigerators you could imagine. Worst part of the job by far.
#49
My father worked for defense contractor. When they finished a project a lot of the stuff they had bought or built for it could not be reused so it was chucked. One day my father called me and told me to borrow my friend’s pickup and meet him behind the building. I brought home an office desk & chair, a workbench and several heavy duty extension cords.
#50
Unopened bottle of Johnny Walker Red. Was in a trash can at a rest stop. Opened the can to throw something away and it was sitting on top.
#51
I worked next to a Office Depot 25 yrs ago-
They would throw brand new stuff out at certain times of the month. Everyone of my family now has a shredder office, computer desk, tons of cords and office supplies.
#53
I've picked up all sorts of things. I use to make about $400 a month just picking up scrap aluminum/brass/copper to sell. Until they cracked down on it.
I've gotten a 32 inch flat screen. Sound cable had disconnected inside the TV. Took 5 mins to fix. Worked perfectly fine. Even came with a remote! lol. I've gotten new shoes, lamps, vacuums that were just clogged, fans, tools, etc... All sorts of things. Then the craziest was a cardbox box (when I was scrapping I would frequently look in boxes) with several deflated used adult toy dolls and an empty "adult toys starter kit" package. Worst part was I knew the late 70's man who lived there. Never could look at him the same way again lol.
#54
I was at a friends house and he was cleaning. Threw away all his magic the gathering cards. I went into his trash and took that stuff out and walked it across the street to my house one box at a time.
still can't believe that.
#55
Not me but my dad. We live in a city so he brings all kinds of stuff.
Best was probably when he found a working N64, games included.
But he always tears the code off of thrown away coke boxes for My Coke rewards. He, and indirectly I get free movie tickets whenever. Free popcorn and drinks too.
#56
My ex brother-in-law is still a garbage man to this day. The craziest thing that ever happened was crushing a full propane tank unknowingly. The explosion shot out of the back and caused first-degree burns on his face. This was years ago. Now the trash companies around here use those cool claws, and not the two guys hanging on the back. Moral of the story: dispose of your trash properly.
#57
A lady had between five and ten trash bags full of cat waste each week. I don't know how many cats she had but anyways that's a lot of waste.
#58
You can always check out /r/dumpsterdiving and see people bragging about finding things like unopened packages of shipping peanuts or 300 slightly expired cans of diced tomatoes.
#59
Kind of relevant -
My boyfriend is an EMT and responded to a call a few weeks ago of a homeless guy sleeping in a trashcan and got dumped in the trash. He was squished multiple times and it took a few stops before the garbagemen realized he was there. He was hospitalized obviously and was in pretty bad shape. Super sad situation:*(.
#60
My boyfriend and several of our friends trash men and it's fabulous. Tons of illegal substance and booze. As well as at least 15 iPods, working laptops, great posters and things for the walls, statues, folk art, and even money on occasion. Not to mention metal to scrap.
#61
I worked for university's conference center in Southern CA one summer as a groundskeeper. After the summer, we were putting away all the mattresses that were used by the university student counselors and discovered a box of photos of the activities that the students had engaged in. There were only a few items of clothing shown in any of the pictures.
#62
As a former hairstylist, I was mildly surprised to find a salon going out of business and throwing barber chairs out back. I grabbed one asking with other equipment and now I cut my family’s hair in the comfort of a real barber chair.
#64
Used to work for a real estate company in Tucson, clearing out foreclosed homes. My favorite story is the "Cartel House". We went to check out the next day's house after work nearby. Nice quiet street. We walk in and the more experienced guy says "Hold up". I notice a rifle leaning against the couch, very high end furniture. The house would have been a huge score. He says "Stay here" and goes upstairs. We leave quickly- he says there were guns at hand in every room- never went back. Reported it to the realty company- they went back a few days later and it was virtually empty. Speculation was that the house was used for illegal activity, perhaps someone in another house in the neighborhood observed our visit. All that stuff would've been legally ours but who knows if we'd have made it out in one piece.
#65
Very big black bear made of plaster. I patched, painted and now it’s a cool outdoor coffee table.
#68
I once lived above a dominos pizza and would take pizza out of the dumpster regularly. I didn’t find anything crazy, but my roommate at the time is now one of the most prominent country superstars…. And I was there for the dumpster pizza days.
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