Scavenging...

caffeinehit

I guess this is the urban version of foraging?

Since skipping through the dewy meadows to pick ripe brambles from the woods isn't really an option if you live in Central London, I was wondering if anyone had any good tips for picking up the fruits of the urban jungle?

[I don't want to repeat the found on the ground thread, but was wondering if anyone had any good tips for your successes?]

My personal tips:

- Good places to find change: ticket machines, gym lockers, bars at closing time and on the pavement outside :beer:
- Pens live and breed under desks or tables in any room they're used in, and can be gathered while pretending to tie shoelaces
- Harvest perfume and cosmetics samples from friends' or housemates' old magazines
- Rush hour trains for newspapers
- Skips are great sources of bits of wood and some useful interior fixtures (not sure I'd want to go into bins)

Any more ideas?

apprentice_tycoon

I have picked up perfect collapsed cardboard boxes for my ebay packing from outside town centre shops, they were put out as rubbish (I went into the shop just to check that they didn't mind) the best was Crabtree and Evelyn, they smelled beautiful!

calleyw

I once removed a wicker basket from a wheelie bin and found a duvet and pillow case in side.

Washed and then used it for a while. But since moving have no idea where it went.

Some one left out a old kitchen cabinet out by the bins. Took it and put paper over it and used for holding bits and pieces in the living room.


Yours

Calley

Sweet_Pea_2

My OH has bought home two old metal filing cabinets from his work that they had replaced and didnt want anymore. He has them in the garage for storage for his pots of paint, jars of nails etc.
He also bought home some wooden pallets that his work were chucking and made a run for the guinea pigs from one of them, and his latest "make" from a pallet was his new cold frame which he is immensley proud of. He stained it with left over wood stain, looks like it cost a lot of money and it actually cost nowt!

Rave

caffeinehit wrote:

- Skips are great sources of bits of wood and some useful interior fixtures (not sure I'd want to go into bins)

Skips can also be a good source of various electrical cables (mains, networking, telephone etc.) especially building site ones. However- I'm a bit of a hygiene freak (to the extent that I think it qualifies as OCD) and yet I still raid bins- the rewards are just too great. Charity shop bins are a good bet to start off with, they tend to be clean and often full of clothes, books, pans/glasses/crockery, toys, electrical/electronic items etc. Supermarket bins tend to be a lot messier but you can on occasion hit the motherlode so it's well worth a look. One time I filled the boot and passenger seat of my car (an old MR2) with groceries, including loads of chocolates, jars of sauce, tins, cleaning products, eggs, and best of all 23 cans of Stella that had been chucked because the 24th had burst and damaged the box:beer:.

In fact a lot of finds tend to be damaged but perfectly useable goods- boxes of eggs get thrown practically every day because one has broken, you can collect the rest- I once got six dozen!:eek: Cans get thrown because they're dented or the label has come loose; cases of anything liquid get thrown because one has burst and coated the rest (pasta sauce/shampoo/whatever, it's all the same). Some stuff like chocolate gfets thrown away because it's passed its use by date- but chocolate doesn't really go off, it just goes a bit white after a while. In the winter I have even had various meats, like bacon, sausages and stewing steak. If I get them on the sell by date they've been fine, although I've tended to casserole them just to be on the safe side. I've had plenty of fruit and vegerables too- markets are another good place to look for these.

Take wet wipes or dettol/kitchen towel if you want to clean up afterwards:).

Apparently, drive through restaurant windows are a good place to look for dropped change:).

Edit 2: To expand upon your 'newspapers on trains' advice- this is especially worthwhile when they have 'collect a DVD' offers on- I've had a few this way:).

Edit 3: re- samples from magazines. If you live in a block of flats (like me) then I quite often find that free samples get delivered along with the local paper; I tend to leave them for a couple of days so everyone in the block has had a chance, and then snaffle the rest. I washed my hair this morning with some free shampoo in fact:). This is a great thread, as a born tightwad I'm getting right into it:D.

Rave

Hmm- nobody else?:( I once found about a pound of chesnuts on the pavement when I lived in Southampton, someone's tree in their garden overhung the road. There are probably chesnut trees in plenty of urban parks, I know that there are lots in Greenwich Park for example. In my mum's garden were two pear trees which hung over the wall, and people used to pick pears off them- usually we had more than we could eat anyway so we weren't bothered unless they took the mickey (like climbing on the wall). The windfalls they were more than welcome to.

I work on the eastern edge of the Borough of Westminster and they seem to do twice daily rubbish collections from the kerb. The Pret-A-Manger next door to us throws out all their unsold sandwiches etc. at the end of the day and so anyone brazen enough could easily get a free meal out of it. I don't tend to bother myself because a) my wife works in a cafe and regularly brings home free grub and b) I'm a bit too self conscious.

Lillibet_2

Sorry to be the voice of doom & gloom BUT.....

Be aware that removing anything from skips or bins, even if they are on the public highway, is theft unless you actually have the householders permission (Can't imagine that anyone would actually persue this but you might as well know the facts)

When harvesting chestnuts make sure you get sweet chestnuts, horse chestnuts are poisonous:eek:

Lillibet

PS : The backs of seats in cabs is also a good place to find money:D

Rave

Lillibet wrote:

Be aware that removing anything from skips or bins, even if they are on the public highway, is theft unless you actually have the householders permission (Can't imagine that anyone would actually persue this but you might as well know the facts)

I can't believe that anyone would persue it, and I certainly don't think that any policeman would waste their time on it nor would any court convict, so the point is pretty moot. If you were taking something from a skip/bin and the owner saw you and told you not to take it, then they might have a legitimate complaint were you to return, but that's about it. I was once questioned by the police while raiding the bins of my local charity shop, and having established that I wasn't a vandal or a wanted criminal they allowed me to continue with no hassle (even though I was clearly drunk). They reckoned that there was a chance that it could be construed as 'theft by finding' but that they'd need to receive a complaint to be interested. Technically, I guess you could extend the theft by finding argument to anything you pick up on the street- legally I guess you should hand all pennies in to the police station to see if anyone claims them!

It's as well to be aware of the legalities though, if only to know what to say if challenged by an over zealous policeman or security guard, so thanks for the prompt:). In fact, most skip/bin owners are far more concerned about people dumping stuff in to their bins than taking it out- if they're paying by the skip or per bin collection then you're actually doing them a favour by taking stuff out. Of course, it's basic ettiquette that you don't make a mess or otherwise inconvenience the owner.

When harvesting chestnuts make sure you get sweet chestnuts, horse chestnuts are poisonous:eek:

They're not hugely dangerous though according to this and according to this they can be made into an acceptable food for horses and cattle- I never knew that before:). I also learnt that I can't spell chestnuts though:rolleyes:.

Links to how to identify them are in this thread.

PS : The backs of seats in cabs is also a good place to find money:D

Don't you get funny looks from the cabby though?;)

AnnaV

We live in Hackney and recycling anything useful here is easy, you can just put it on the pavement with a sign saying 'please take me' and it's usually gone within the hour! Especially useful as we don't have a car.

There are lots of auctions which are supposed to be brilliant for cheap furniture, although that's not strictly scavenging.

Rave

Freecycle is also good for getting rid of stuff Anna- the London one has thousands of members! Of course, it must be good for getting stuff too, although I've only participated as a giver:).

www.freecycle.org

squiggles

Just thaught i would let all those who recycle from skips my story.

A few years ago i lived in an old house and it had some sort of ancient heater on the wall in the passage so we had it removed by a gas man.Once the wall heater was gone we had a bit of skirting board missing so instead of just patching it up i thaught it would look neater replacing the full length.I was passing a skip one day and saw a brand new length of wood exactly what i needed so i went skipping home so pleased with myself and my then boyfriend screwed it on.

A few years later we had to get a damp proof coarse,anyway to cut a long story short,we had woodworm too and had to get the floor joists and floor boards replaced and all because i tried to save pennies salvaging a peice of skirting from a skip.So be careful.