Tips: Dumpster Diving Tool Kit

[mrazikti1]

Originally Posted by queenofthehivemomof5 When we are talking about dumpster diving we are not talking about diving in trash bins but recycling bins designated for newspaper. For me dumpster diving is very easy, you go, you open the lid, you look inside and if lucky there are bundled Sunday newspapers right on top of the papers in the bin, you grab paper (using grabbing tool or 3 pronged tool above if necessary) and toss bundles of papers in car, go home sort coupons out, next week drop off neswpapers and start all over again. To curb dive where I live would be more bother since we do what is called "blue bag recycling" meaning that everyone puts all thier recycleables into blue bags, un sorted and sets them curbside for pick up. If I were to go through those I would have to sift through cans, glass, pizza boxes and spaghetti sauce jars to find inserts. Of course recycling programs, laws, and what you can find will vary greatly depending on where you live, when you dive, and what the newspaper company does with thier leftover newspapers (some take them back and recycle them in-house).

we don't even have recycling where i live!! ihave to drive 25mins to Lansing and dive in this BIG dumpster--for news papers only. but i did recently learn that a town near by has a big empty trailer that people can drop off their papers in. sounds a lot easier to dive than the dumpster. i don't know if we're actually allowed to dive in lansing, mi. the mag sign said not to climb in it-and we're not. but there wasn't anything on the newspaper one, and no one said anything to us. there are 2 though and the one had little feet blockers to try and keep people from climbing up on them. the other one looked like it used to but there were broken off. gonna try again today now that sunday's paper has circulated. wish me luck. maybe we'll find some more people while we're there that will let us go through their papers..

[MoneyPenny]

Originally Posted by queenofthehivemomof5 When we are talking about dumpster diving we are not talking about diving in trash bins but recycling bins designated for newspaper.

Unfortunately some people here ARE to be talking about physically diving into bins.

IMO It is very irresponsible to assume that just because a bin is labeled for recycling that it will not contain other, potentially hazardous, materials.

[abond0017]

Originally Posted by MoneyPenny Unfortunately some people here ARE to be talking about physically diving into bins. IMO It is very irresponsible to assume that just because a bin is labeled for recycling that it will not contain other, potentially hazardous, materials.

I know at the recycling center I use there are always other things in the recycle bins....water hoses, bags of stinky trash, even seen metal shelving and a tire one time....people just dont pay attention to the recycling sign or just dont care.
I am very careful though. I use a stick or something like it to move stuff around and I never dig near any of the trash...I'll just move to another spot or container.

[MommaBum]

I finally did it. We have a really nice recycling center in town. After days of driving by I finally stopped in yesterday evening. They had dumped the newspaper bins since lunchtime but I still ended up with 7 or 8 inserts. I am definitely going back but on Sunday or Monday evening to have a better selection.

[ctaylor7623]

THanks for this tip. My daughter and friend made a contest out of this and the ones that got the most coupons got to go to the store and pick out something that they found a coupon for.

[ctaylor7623]

THanks for this idea. We Made a contest out of it and the kids had alot of fun.

[MommaBum]

I am definitely an addict now. Tuesday evening was my first time. I also went yesterday at noon and today at noon I dug in. I got about 15 inserts today (woohoo) and to my surprise there was an older couple searching too. We all three picked a bin and went to diving.

I LOVE THIS!!!

[nichol]

My DD and I went today. We scored so BIG !!!!! It was saturday afternoon but I decided to look in the paper bin and see what we found. HOLY COW We brought home 25 inserts and left a bunch there. I can't wait to go Monday night now and see if they are in there yet if not I will go on tuesday. My dd is SOOO siked that she got in and scored all of them.

[t1lersm0m]

I told my husband about "dumpster diving" over dinner, and he said no way am I allowed to do this. Oh well, what he doesn't know won't hurt him!!!! :)

[Kenzey's Mom]

Where I live we have curbside recycling, and it always falls on a Sunday. I've tried to find inserts in my local residential area but I can never find more than a couple. So after three weeks of only finding some inserts, last week I decided to branch out into our surrounding commercial areas. I asked my DH to take me and I stopped by a couple of local delis and convience stores and was so siked to find sunday papers all stacked up and neatly tied together so instead of making a mess I took all the papers home with me. Imagine my suprise when I went through them and found that they had no coupon inserts!!!!!:shrug7: I almost cried, apparently I got the paper that only have redplum and last week there wasn't any redplum inserts.......

Anyways I decided to take another stab at it today. Since DH is working late tonight and I don't drive I left my DD with my mom and went out in search of inserts with my shopping cart in tow. I found a store that was closing and had huge stacks of papers on the curb, I felt really weird about taking them while they were still open. So I waited until they closed and it was dark and then I loaded all the papers in my cart and speed home.... I looked like a bag lady, but boy did it pay off not only did I get this weeks inserts (about 30 of them) but I also got last weeks... I was so happy I just had to call DH, he laughed so hard and said he couldn't believe how happy I am over "old newspapers." But he also promised to start picking up papers on Sunday night from those small newspaper stands in NYC when he's working,that way I won't be known as the crazy lady that picks up tons of papers in our area.