Taking saving to the extreme - becoming a Freegan!

Rummer

Both my OH and I are always peeking in skips when we pass them and the last time we went to the dump we came home with more stuff than we took! Didn't know you had to ask the skip owner, we always just assumed if they threw it out you were free to take it!

soolin

I saw a programme about thrify people on the TV ages ago where their council dump actually had trestle tables of stuff that the workers rescued from the tip and resold for pennies. It seemed like a brilliant idea, they bought vases and books and odds and ends that just needed a clean and a new fuse or something.

No doubt 'elf and safety prevent any of it now.

My own council dump is heavily regulated, you are watched all the time and even trying to sort of help your own bags across is frowned at. Mind you when I ended up dumping my chairs the men at the dump told me to stay in my car as they would unload it all and save me the bother, then all my chairs disappeared off away from the dump and towards their little hut.

Gigervamp

Someone here in Wales was recently prosecuted for taking something from the council tip. Again, elfin safety was sited as to why they don't allow it. Yet other councils do. Someone I know on another forum has a great tip by the sounds of it. She's always getting stuff from hers. They do charge for the items, but it's just a token payment. If one council can do it why not others?

lucy*locket

Gigervamp wrote: »

Someone here in Wales was recently prosecuted for taking something from the council tip. Again, elfin safety was sited as to why they don't allow it. Yet other councils do. Someone I know on another forum has a great tip by the sounds of it. She's always getting stuff from hers. They do charge for the items, but it's just a token payment. If one council can do it why not others?

Seems to vary from council to council, we should all be encouraged to reuse and recycle yet it's made very difficult in many areas isn't it? :mad:

In the USA they're more clued up, I've read about schemes where householders can leave out unwanted items on a certain day for anyone to take away, and they have Yardsales...oooh I so want to go to one, whole streets and areas have yardsales which are advertised in the local paper, what a brill idea. Aren't we supposed to be 10 years behind the USA??!!! So maybe in, ooh, 7 or 8 years, we might catch up with them;)

geordie_joe

Gigervamp wrote: »

Someone here in Wales was recently prosecuted for taking something from the council tip. Again, elfin safety was sited as to why they don't allow it. Yet other councils do. Someone I know on another forum has a great tip by the sounds of it. She's always getting stuff from hers. They do charge for the items, but it's just a token payment. If one council can do it why not others?

Where I live it's not the council who charge, but the council workers who run the tip.

If you try to take something they stop you, but if you say "How much for this" or "I'll give you two quid for that" then the hand is out and you can have it.

It is recommended that you never ask "how much" as they never say less than a fiver, but offering a couple of quid always works.

geordie_joe

lucy*locket wrote: »

In the USA they're more clued up, I've read about schemes where householders can leave out unwanted items on a certain day for anyone to take away,

In Australia this is called Pavement Shopping Day. One day per month you can put out your unwanted household items and people can just take them.

There was some talk of it in the Green board a while ago. I started a petition to have it in this country, and publicised it in the Green Board.

Of all those people in there, who claim to be green and walk 10 miles to recycle stuff, use freecycle, and do all sorts of stuff to "Save the planet" only 18 bothered to sign it. And I have no way of knowing that all 18 people were from the Green Board.

JoolzS

I've rescued a few things out of skips. If it's during the day and the owners/builders are obviously in the house, then I always knock and ask first. One time DH and I spotted an external door that we thought would be perfect for our flat. We knocked and asked the owners if we could have it - not only did they help us get it back out of the skip, they also went indoors and hunted down the keys that fit the locks already on the door. As it turned out, the door was a little too big for our doorway, but was a perfect fit for a friend's back doorway.

I've had more than one person knock our door and ask if an item sat in our front garden (usually there because DH is going to get around to taking it to the dump eventually!) is going begging. I absolutely love it if they want to take it away because it saves us using petrol and time to take it to the dump.

Julie

floyd

Yep, I am a skip diver although not a regular.
As kids my Mum encouraged us to retrieve any ornamental plant pots that people were chucking out as they were so expensive and we were fairly skint. I have also taken a dishwasher top drawer from my local tip as the wheels on ours were wrecked and the manufacturer couldn't get us replacements.
Very recently there was a skip down the road that had 1930's panelled doors in it and we are 1 short for renovating our house but by the time either OH or I had chance to go down with the car the skip had gone
I do tend to ask these days as I know I would be pi***d off if someone was rooting through my skip more because of the mess caused by things falling out.
We also left a pine coffee table in the front garden while we were having a clear out and a lady knocked to ask if she could have it. We were delighted as it meant we didn't have to drive to the charity shop or tip!

Valli

well for anyone in n e derbys there are filing cabinets...

Ciscodaisy2

I must admit that i have many times, I usually ask so not to look stupid when they come out and have a go. I got a brand new metal bead and matress still wrapped up in the polythene from a skip down a friends road, I just knocked on thei door and asked why it was in the skip "Ohh.. umm! The colours all wrong and my wife daughter didnt like it" :cool: Took that one home and its now in my spare room!

Also, was at the dump and i needed a new moniter for my pc, saw a 17"tft moniter so went over to the hut where they all smoke and drink tea all day, and said "what you are you after for the moniter mate" he simply replied "a bag of sugar, i have run out and i cannot drink tea without it"

popped to town, got some value caster sugar.. got a new computer screen, the one i am on at the mo :rotfl:

I love the dump, and skips... But i dont admit it to other people XD