Dumpster diving

A man rummaging through a skip at the back of an office building in Central London

Dumpster diving, also called "dumpstering," "binning," "trashing," or "garbing," is a North American term to describe the practice of rummaging through commercial or residential trash to find useful free items that have been discarded. In the United Kingdom, the practice is referred to as "binning" or sometimes "skipping." The term originates from the fanciful image of someone leaping into large rubbish bins, the best-known of which are produced under the name "Dumpster." These are also known as "bins" or "skips." In practice, dumpstering is more like fishing around than diving in. In most cases people dumpster dive to reclaim items that have been disposed of but can still be put to further use - e.g. food, furniture, clothes, etc. More professional divers are often accompanied by a bicycle with panniers or a cart of some kind.

Many people dumpster-dive not out of economic necessity, but for the thrill of the hunt, or as a creative outlet by looking for things in ways other than intended, or fixing and reusing things prematurely discarded. Some artists looks for material in dumpsters. The interior designer Carol Tanzi (aka "Goddess of Garbage") uses re-cycled material in her designs.[1]

Food can often be acquired in this manner from bakeries or grocery stores. Offices, factories, department stores, and other commercial establishments also sometimes throw out nonperishable items that were returned or have minor damages.

Because computers have a commercial life of approximately 18 months, many fully-functional and actually quite capable computers get dumped. Sometimes the hard discs aren't erased (see "information diving"). Many organizations like Geeks Into The Streets, reBOOT and Computerbank try to collect and reuse old computers.

Overview

In the United States, Canada, and Europe, supermarkets routinely discard food items before the expiration date because of overstock, minor imperfections or blemishes. Often, this food is safe for consumption. It is considered good practice to wash any unpackaged food items.

Dumpster diving can be a spontaneous act upon seeing a useful item in the garbage, a conscious low-impact lifestyle choice (for example, as a part of freeganism), a skill acquired by those with few other options to obtain goods or food, or a deliberate strategy for finding information and material for other purposes (eg, private investigations or official ones by police). Dumpstering is also associated with "curbing", or rummaging through trash on city sidewalk curbs. Discarded furniture, electronics, appliances, books, and clothing are all commonly found.

Dumpster diving is practiced differently in countries whose commercial disposal practices are different from the developed world. In many economically developed countries, food is rarely thrown away unless it is rotten. In many countries, charities collect excess food from supermarkets and restaurants and distribute it to the needy. Dumpster divers in these countries may concentrate on looking for antiques or scrap materials to sell.

British television shows have even featured home renovations and decoration using salvaged materials. Changing Rooms is one such show, broadcast on BBC One. Recovery of still-useful items from discards is well-known in other cultures as well; James Fallows noted it in his book written about his time living in Japan. However, much of the richness attributed to dumpster diving in Japan ended with the collapse of the nation's economic bubble in 1990.

Dumpster diving is a tool for garbologists, who study the sociology and archeology of trash in modern life. There is a major outpost of academic garbology at the University of Arizona, directed for some decades by William Rathje.

Another activity associated with dumpster diving is recycling collection. People often go through dumpsters and other trash containers looking for cans, often soda cans, or other recyclable materials. In some places these can be sold to recycling plants. Recycling is also possible with other materials such as copper, lead, and other scrap metals. Copper collection for sale can extend to stripping buildings and other installations of their pipes and wiring. This kind of scavenging has been widely reported in the former Soviet Union and seems to have been the cause of a very large fire in some Brooklyn waterfront warehouses in May of 2006. Some artists also collect recyclable materials for future use in their art.

Information diving

In addition to offering useful items like food and clothing, dumpsters can also be a source of information. Files, letters, memos, photographs, IDs, passwords, credit cards and more can be found in dumpsters. This is a result of the fact that many people never consider that sensitive items they throw in the trash may be recovered. Such information, when recovered, is sometimes usable for fraudulent purposes (see also so-called "identity theft")

Supposedly, information diving was more common in the 1980s due to lax security; when businesses became aware of the need for increased security in the early 1990s, sensitive documents were shredded before being placed in dumpsters. There is still considerable Internet activity on the subject of dumpster diving, so it is unlikely to have stopped with the widespread introduction of document shredding. Security mythology has it that curious hackers or malicious crackers commonly use this technique, but this may be an urban legend as social engineering is often easier.

Dumpster diving is commonly practiced by "watchdog" organizations seeking information on groups they are investigating. The Trinity Foundation successfully used this technique to report on the activities of televangelist Robert Tilton, and has also obtained information on Benny Hinn using this practice.

Legal status

Because dumpsters are usually located on private premises, dumpster diving is illegal in some parts of the United States, though the law is enforced with varying degrees of rigor. The California v. Greenwood U.S. Supreme Court case held that there is no common law expectation of privacy for discarded materials. Dumpster diving per se is probably legal when not specifically prohibited by state or local law.

Police (and possibly other) searches of dumpsters and like discards are not violations; evidence seized in this way has been permitted in many criminal trials. The doctrine is less well established in regard to civil litigation. Similarly in the United Kingdom, while dumpster diving in England and Wales may qualify as theft within the Theft Act 1968, or as common-law theft in Scotland, there is very little enforcement in practice.

Private investigators have written books on "P.I. technique" in which dumpster diving, or its equivalent "wastebasket recovery," figure prominently. In Italy, a law issued in 2000 declared dumpster diving to be legal.

Trivia

*In the 1960s, Jerry Schneider recovered several instruction manuals from The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company, and used the information to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of telephone equipment.
*The Castle Infinity game, after its shutdown, was brought back from the dead by rescuing its servers from the trash.
*Recently, dumpster diving has been popularized in the book Evasion, published by Crimethinc.
*Food Not Bombs is an anti-hunger organization that gets most of its food from dumpster diving. The food from the dumpsters are often located at small markets and corporate grocery stores.
*In an interview in the May 29, 2006 issue of Newsweek, Meetup.com founder Scott Heiferman was asked, "What's the weirdest meetup that's ever come to your attention?" He replied, "Dumpster-diving meetups are very popular...."

External links

* The Dumpster Lady's FAQ
* See also the Usenet newsgroup, alt.dumpster
* Freeganism and info on dumpster diving
* A dumpster diving blog
* Another dumpster diving blog

Dumpster diving: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents