Whats the best thing you ever saved or got from the dump / rubbish ?

Forums › Off topic › Whats the best thing you ever saved or got from the dump / rubbish ?

elpenguino

3419 posts

Uber Geek

#223518 3-Oct-2017 22:17

We've all got one thing we use all the time which we picked up on the street or found somewhere. Yours might be that old but expensive hifi component you rescued from the dump, or something like that.

Mine is a server rack power strip i found in the rubbish at work some time ago. This is a metal bodied thing with 16 power sockets - it's been on my desk at home for a few years now and makes it easy to play around with various bits of kit.

What's yours?

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

1 | 2 | 3

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#1876867 3-Oct-2017 22:39

I always enjoy the story my parents tell about when I was a kid I went around the inorganic collecting vacuum cleaner hoses and taping the ends together, and then walking down the street with this hose stretching the lengths of several houses. I can't recall it but it does sound like a pretty neat series of finds!

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1876879 3-Oct-2017 23:49

Is your real name Stig of The Dump?

PhantomNVD

2619 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1876887 4-Oct-2017 01:13

A fancy ‘delux’ 8 burner stainless steel BBQ found in the last local inorganic that only needed an LPG bottle to look and work as well as the day it was first bought 😃

CYaBro

4582 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1876888 4-Oct-2017 01:35

Our current dog. :)
We saved him from the spca.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
18657 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1876932 4-Oct-2017 07:50

In Amsterdam we used to have rubbish collection on Monday morning when everyone would leave stuff on the streets. It was amazing what you could find and many young people furnished their rooms this way.

Once I found an old console valve radio, minus the cabinet, and hauled it home for the hell of it. When I checked it the rectifier valve was burned out. I replaced it with a power diode and switched the radio on. It had short-wave bands and it worked perfectly. For years this was my pipeline to the BBC world service. I listened to the original broadcast of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on it, as well as many other programmes. This was my media entertainment centre. That old radio was still working fine when I finally moved on.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1876955 4-Oct-2017 08:17

Myself

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1876987 4-Oct-2017 09:04

This sort of thing was generally the preserve of gypsies where I grew up...not the sort of people we tried to emulate!

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

askelon

875 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1877033 4-Oct-2017 09:41

My garage has cupboards and the pantry from an old kitchen in it. Just for storage. Neighbour was redoing their kitchen and had a big skip bin. I also recovered our cat from the middle of it where he was happily sleeping when the company came to take the bin away. Lazy little bugger would have ended up at the dump!

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1877083 4-Oct-2017 10:43

... people really go digging through rubbish dumps ?

kryptonjohn

2523 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1877090 4-Oct-2017 10:47

Ugh. My wife has a habit of bringing cr*p home that someone has left out on the kerb. And *I* am the one expected to refurbish whatever this unwanted thing is.

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1877096 4-Oct-2017 10:52

kryptonjohn:

Ugh. My wife has a habit of bringing cr*p home that someone has left out on the kerb. And *I* am the one expected to refurbish whatever this unwanted thing is.

My father would do that, he would fix them up and give them to charity. He was one of the guys that just seemed to be able to fix anything.

Behodar

10502 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1877104 4-Oct-2017 11:00

Inphinity:

... people really go digging through rubbish dumps ?

Apparently. There must have been a reason for the "No! Scavenging" sign* at the local one.

I've never done it myself though, so I haven't saved/acquired anything of use.

*Yes, that's the actual punctuation.

frankv

5680 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1877116 4-Oct-2017 11:11

Moved into an apartment in Switzerland, and, from the dumpster out front, recovered the carpet that had presumably been on our floor the day before. Didn't find the curtains or light fittings though :(

Some friends in Japan outfitted their entire apartment from stuff that neighbours had put out on the kerbside; fridge, sofa, bed, the lot.

Senecio

2710 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1877136 4-Oct-2017 11:34

When my wife and I moved into our first home together I picked up an old 2 stroke lawn mover from the side of the road that someone had left for council collection. A new spark plug, a new air filter and a spit and polish it started first pull with fresh fuel mix in it. It lasted for 10yrs without a further penny spent on it and survived not one but two floods. It might not have as fancy as the neighbour's fancy 4-stroke Honda but it did the job and cost me nothing.

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#1877148 4-Oct-2017 11:46

A F&P ECS washing machine that one of my neighbours had tried to gash the wrong series of control module into. Trademe'd the correct module, and $60 later I had an ECS washer that has since given years of faithful service.

1 | 2 | 3