My Experience Dumpster Diving

Before attending Metro State this summer I had completed 4 years at Saint Mary's University in Winona. During my final week as a student on campus, my friends and I decided that we would have a little fun and go dumpster diving since almost everyone else had moved off campus at that point. We figured we would find at least one or two things worth keeping that people had left behind, and boy were we right!

We went from dorm to dorm collecting other student’s discards and ended up filling up my roommate’s car except for the driver’s seat. Things that we ended up finding: furniture (which was great because a couple of us were moving into apartments after graduation), unopened cleaning supplies, windshield washer fluid, lots of clothes that had no place being in the dumpster, perfectly new light bulbs, a really nice sleeping bag (don't worry I washed it), nice blankets (we washed those too), and a Sega Genesis with games and controllers. It was a pretty nice haul and suffice it to say, we were pretty proud, but also kicking ourselves for not dumpster diving in prior years!

To help you visualize at least some of what we ended up with, in the picture below everything I am wearing came from the dumpster dive along with the sweatshirts my friends are wearing.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The great thing was that we scored big that day and lessened the amount going to the landfill. Now, we didn’t take everything that could have been salvaged, but we made a positive impact. The experience also gave me a more conscientious perspective on what I throw away. Now I make sure that if I am done with something that is still useable, I donate it. 

If you ever have the opportunity, I would recommend going on a dive of your own because even if you end up with one thing, that is one less thing sitting at a landfill.

Has anyone else ever dumpster dived before? What was your experience like?