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We have bulk pickup in our town once a month. I was going for a walk today and my eyes lit up. Took my truck and got four pieces of nice pine, 5 'long 9"wide by 3/4", another piece 17" wide by 4 ' long, pretty sure its veneer something, and two pieces of pine 6" wide, 3 ' long by 1" thick. Given the price of wood today, I know where I'll be on bulk pickup day every month. (Needless to say my wife was not happy with my " bulk picking" )
It always hurts me to get rid of shorts and long but narrow pieces that I know are usable by "someone" just not by me, at least not in the volume I seem to generate them when processing rough sawn lumber. I just don't have room to keep most of them. So I always wrap them in bundles with stretch wrap, and put them out late afternoon the day before our normal trash pickup. They are almost always gone by morning. Good on you for saving usable material from the dump and just tell your wife how much you are saving at today's lumber prices!
Some of my favorite pieces of lumber have been the ones salvaged in the wild.
jtk
I picked up a 100 foot extension cord one time from someone's trash - if I remember right it was 14 gauge. After checking it, I found that one of the wires broke at the connection to the female end. Replaced that and I had a good extension cord.
Trash diving!
Mike
Gentlemen.
Welcome to the Clan MacFrugal.
Don’t you people realize the repurposing as evidenced above does not support the consumer economy? UnAmerican and possibly unpatriotic not supporting Wall St and our capitalist system. The stimulus money was meant to be spent on buying new things, not enabling trash crawling and reusing stuff. Dennis listen to your wife, I think you should do the right thing and throw those boards out and send me your address.
"Who just gives away wood?"
- Jamie, from Progressive Insurance
Two weeks ago, picked up TWO Sthil chainsaws from dumpsters. Gave one away there and brought the other home. Fired up on third pull, used it to cut up an Elm log. Last Sunday morning, in front of a recently sold house was a complete gas grill, in working condition- FREE.
I picked up a Weber charcoal burning kettle grill in nice shape right across from my elderly mothers house during the towns spring clean up days recently. I had been wanting another one for some time but never got around to buying another one
In 1999 or 2000 I picked up a roll of twist tie material, like is used to close bread bags, about 12" in diameter and 4" wide. It was all marked MONDAY every few inches. I kept it on a wall for many years and occasionally used a little, and then finally in 2019 I found someone who used that kind of material often and was happy to have a big roll of it. I have picked up lots of other things that were more useful, too.
My town had to switch to you call and schedule the bulky item pickup. When it was in a entire neighborhood the scrappers came and broke it all up and took any metal leaving a big mess into the street. garbage company lost money with no metal scrap to cover cost.
If I leave anything metal in the alley it is gone in a week or less. Neighbor left a foam mattress in the. alley scrapers cut it apart looking for springs. I think it did have a stiff wire top rim.
Bill D