JW,R:
Ever since I was a young’n, it has been hard for me to pass a dumpster or trash heap without investigating it. I quickly learned that folks throw out a lot of good stuff, thinking it is worthless (someone said “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”); e.g. I’ve found appliances which only need a new electrical plug! Nowadays, the same habit has greatly enhanced my prepping inventory, and best of all, it’s free, leaving more of my tight budget to buy store-bought items. If you collect more things than you can use, the extras can be bartered, sold, or given/lent.
I’ll start with some common-sense cautions:
1) Avoid climbing on or in dumpsters. No sense getting injured, even before the SHTF. Or, you can get trapped inside a high-walled one. If you have to, carry two ladders with you. Also, it’s common to meet up with nasty critters inside.
2) Unless you’re starving, stay away from food garbage dumpsters. Although, I must admit, I’ve gotten perfectly good food items from behind grocery stores which were discarded on the sell-by date.
3) Watch for nails and other “sharps”. Wear gloves.
4) To be safe (legal), seek permission beforehand. In my experience, checking with the site guys always resulted in a friendly “sure, go ahead!”
5) Do not touch the charity bins, such as those owned by Goodwill.
I’ve personally gotten my best finds from construction sites. Obviously, there’s mostly wood, but hey, I’m a woodchuck anyway, and have made many projects out of scrap lumber. Also a good source for kindling. I’ve found plenty of other goodies, though: tools which only needed a new handle (often you can find a tool with the handle bad and another one with the steel part bad, and swap the parts). The best thing I’ve been getting lately by far is scrap copper, as #2 (not shiny) is fetching $2.80/lb.
You’d be surprised at the number of short lengths crews throw out. Plastic buckets are very common, as are pallets (both have multiple uses) Some of the best troves can be found when a company is going out of business (nowadays, imagine that!). It just isn’t worth their time to try and sell a lot of their office and shop stuff. Good furniture, filing cabinets, pads of paper, buckets of nuts and bolts, cleaning supplies, etc.
Obviously, you’re going to have to do a bit of investigating in order to find the best dumpsters. Once you do, you can visit the same ones every few days or so and get more of the same stuff you previously found. The biggest drawback a lot of you will have is the attitude of “wouldn’t stoop so low”, or “that is just too embarrassing”. Well, over the years I’ve come to realize just how right my late mother was when she always told me “pride goeth before the fall”. Maybe not a direct quote, but now I understand it. – Bullet Bob