Tool haul a scrapper finds in a dumpster...

[KnurledNut]

The whole video is worth watching, but the theme starts at 2:55.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know the value of the Starrett surface plate and left it behind. :-(

 

[woody 73]

Unreal what people throw away, just unreal. He had no idea about that surface plate, but I would bet after reading future comments he will learn about his mistakes.
Love the few tools he found.

 

[Bert_]

I need to make friends with more guys that scrap. Offer them more than the yard so I can get some good stuff.

 

[JuncleJohn]

We had to lock our dumpster after hours to keep divers from making a big mess in the parking lot. Metal chips mixed in with floor dry, misc trash etc just thrown all over.

Yes that Starrett surface plate would have been a good score. Obviously the ones that discarded all the goodies had no idea the value of what they were tossing.

John

 

[Dumber than lumber]

The whole video is worth watching, but the theme starts at 2:55.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know the value of the Starrett surface plate and left it behind. :-(

Did you post a “You ****!!” In the comments?

 

[four.cycle]

DAmn! That is crazy! Tossin' out perfectly good tools!

 

[Shiftless]

I’m not scrapper by any means, but I did pull this Reed vise out of a dumpster. My mailman knew I collected bench vises and he was nice enough to alert me to one that was bolted to a rotted old workbench sitting in a dumpster out at the curb a few blocks from my house.

 

[3baygarage]

Goodbye stir it stone

 

[MushCreek]

If only you knew what businesses throw out! I had recently left a job at one place to start my own business. The company told the maintenance man to clean out the store room, and he got pissed and threw out everything. Precision tools, tool steel; all sorts of stuff. The guys knew I was starting a shop and called me up. "Bob's gone crazy and threw everything out!" I filled my old pick-up until the springs bottomed out.

The last place I worked they threw out a welded steel table with a Wilton vise on it because it was 'in the way'. It's in my shop now.

 

[dchawk81]

I’m not scrapper by any means, but I did pull this Reed vise out of a dumpster. My mailman knew I collected bench vises and he was nice enough to alert me to one that was bolted to a rotted old workbench sitting in a dumpster out at the curb a few blocks from my house.

I wish my mailman knew I'm a prolific amazoner and gave me everyone else's packages.

 

[neophyte]

DAmn! That is crazy! Tossin' out perfectly good tools!

Check the “hoarding” threads on GJ.
Companies toss stuff because it costs more to sort or repair stuff than it is worth to pay the people who work there to fix the stuff, or maybe than the storage space is worth.
I would presume either a new granite plate was needed in a larger size, or that one had become out of spec for some reason, do into the dumpster it went.
The same possibly for the depth gages.
Once the items are thrown in the dumpster, they are legally disposed of, and can be written off of taxes as no longer in inventory, and therefore no longer a “stored asset” on the companies books.

 

[JuncleJohn]

Most likely the business or that part of it had closed and those in charge had no idea on how to handle liquidating the assets. They probably thought the micrometers and depth gages had no more value than a stapler or paper punch. The Starrett surface plate? Just a heavy rock to them.

Quite often big businesses are in too big of a hurry to lay off employees than to wind things down in an orderly manner. I blame it on the bean counters.

John

 

[MushCreek]

I had a buddy that worked for a defense contractor in the early 80's. When they closed the plant, they took all of the NEW carbide inserts out of the packaging and dumped them in drums for disposal. We're talking 55 GALLON drums of carbide inserts!

 

[rust in the eye]

Amusing guy and a nice haul. Not sure I'd want to do this for a living.
There is guy who patrols my neighborhood on trash collection day who sometimes has some interesting stuff aboard. I need to look closer into his haul when he stops here for my scrap.

 

[LXCam]

Last week I spent a day trying to make space in the shop. I’ve had these doors in my way for months

Jail doors - free!

Bet this is a first here. Free to a good home or possibly a really bad one. I’ve got 9 - 3/0 x 7/0 x 2” detention grade doors we had to swap out as they failed a ASTM deflection requirement. They’re set up for a vision pane (not provided) and your very own cuff port (hinges not provided)...

www.garagejournal.com

And decided to test out the tweeker scrapper theory and set them out in the alley. I also had a milk carton crate of the vision pain angles that was close to a hundred pounds tossed on top of the doors.

Within the hour the milk carton crate was gone and the top door had been shifted.

Within three days the entire stack was gone. Tweeker theory proven

 

[rust in the eye]

Most likely the business or that part of it had closed and those in charge had no idea on how to handle liquidating the assets. They probably thought the micrometers and depth gages had no more value than a stapler or paper punch. The Starrett surface plate? Just a heavy rock to them.

Quite often big businesses are in too big of a hurry to lay off employees than to wind things down in an orderly manner. I blame it on the bean counters.

John

Yep, I was once beneficiary of such a disposal.
Turned down a large genset, easy five figures, perhaps six, in a shipping container because I had no place to store and no way to move. Still kicking myself for not investing the time to figure that one out.

 

[KnurledNut]

A friend of mine sold sheds. Sometimes they would get repo’d with stuff inside. The business secured them and gave the customer the timeframe agreed upon in the contract to collect their items. Everything went to the dump after that. More often than not, they would forfeit their stuff. A lot of garbage, but some gems. I’ve seen some with rolls of brand new Romex where they were wiring it to live in.

 

[welder4956]

I blame it on the bean counters.

Bean counters shouldn't be counting beans if they don't know what the beans look like.

 

[MushCreek]

When my buddy and I had a small shop, we ditched an old fridge that had burnt out (long story). It weighed a metric $hit-ton, and it was all we could do to get it up and into the dumpster. The empty dumpster made a huge BOOM! and we sneaked back into the shop. Literally 3 minutes later, here comes a stumpy little guy with a scrap truck. He got that fridge out of the dumpster by himself! We joked that he could tell the copper content by the sound it made hitting the bottom of the dumpster.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I've watched Mike off and on over the years. I have no doubt, hes a good dude and entertaining. When I first started watching him, he had an older pick up. Last time, he moved up to a newer F150 and one haul had 5400lbs of scrap steel (think heavy equipment parts like track pads).

This video, it appears like he's moved up to a Super Duty, at least on my phone.

He explained one time about the Akro-bins. He finds them all the time and if he took them on every haul, he wouldn't have room for anything else. Now, he leaves them in the dumpsters.

 

[NUTTSGT]

Bean counters shouldn't be counting beans if they don't know what the beans look like.

Or what they are worth....

 

[zendriver]

Had to mute the sound.

I used to find pretty good stuff in CA dumpsters, when I had time to dig through them.

 

[Tynee]

Not sure I'd want to do this for a living.

this is how I feel about it. I suspect he spent the better part of an afternoon in those dumpsters to collect that truck load of scrap, and he's still got time ahead of him to remove the fittings from the hoses and other "clean up." All for what, a couple hundred in scrap? Yeah he did better on this load because of the tools and their value at the pawn shop, but I'd guess most loads are half a day for $100...

 

[NUTTSGT]

this is how I feel about it. I suspect he spent the better part of an afternoon in those dumpsters to collect that truck load of scrap, and he's still got time ahead of him to remove the fittings from the hoses and other "clean up." All for what, a couple hundred in scrap? Yeah he did better on this load because of the tools and their value at the pawn shop, but I'd guess most loads are half a day for $100...

Watch of his videos, hes had some pretty good scores. I think also has a means to flip some of the better stuff.

 

[four.cycle]

^ yeah well... half a day for a C-note is still better than a poke in the eye with a stick. just another young man tryin' to make his way in the world - can't fault him for that. better than the guys standing on street corners with their cardboard signs.
but yeah... lot of effort for not a lot of return.

 

[dchawk81]

^ yeah well... half a day for a C-note is still better than a poke in the eye with a stick. just another young man tryin' to make his way in the world - can't fault him for that. better than the guys standing on street corners with their cardboard signs.
but yeah... lot of effort for not a lot of return.

Right it's not worth it to us but that doesnt mean it's not worth it to him.

I made some of my money when I was younger spending inordinate amounts of time cleaning fixing up and reselling stuff people didnt want.

Would I do it today? No because I make more doing what I do now. But back then I couldn't do what I do now.

 

[gahrajmahal]

We have a nice and clean scrap yard near our house. They routinely run a bobcat broom about the yard so you don’t get flat tires every time you go there. I saw a woman driving an old ambulance one time filled with pop cans, uncrushed in garbage bags so I asked the scrap man if there was money to be made in pop cans. He told me the going rate and I looked up how many cans to make a pound. It was about 30-35 cans. So I made the summer pop can challenge for my grandkids. Two boys -vs-two girls. I told them I’d match the money they made up to $300 to be used for school supplies and clothes.

Well, it was mostly the dads who pushed the kids to sort and crush the cans by stomping on them. Each pair went to the scrap yard with me and a regular load of scrap I end up having. The extra scrap was a bonus. We drove the truck onto the scale and remembered the total weight. Offloaded the regular scrap with the giant cranes grabbing and shifting the giant piles of scrap. Then we drove back to the special metals shack where they weighed the garbage cans full of crushed cans and received the weight ticket.

Then we drove back to the scales to re-weigh the truck. The tension was palpable! Some group mathematics was done. The truck had lost about 220#. Into the payment trailer which is dirty but looks like a bank vault due to the bullet proof glass and slipping my drivers license and weight slips under the glass.

How much will it be???

Around $7.50 for each team! Plus around $15 from the mixed scrap.

So we all had a good laugh and stopped for ice cream on the way back. I gave each kid $50 to get the school year started and thanked them for this little experiment. We have gone back several times just because we love recycling and tossing the stuff onto the giant pile.

 

[Roert42]

Is did math on cans once.

I figured out that if I drank a 30pk of beer a week for a whole year, I’d have enough to buy a $20 case of beer.

Totally worth having trash bags of old beer cans piles up next to the house.


I’ve met guys who drop a couple pieces of gravel in each can before crushing them.

 

[LXCam]

We have a nice and clean scrap yard near our house. They routinely run a bobcat broom about the yard so you don’t get flat tires every time you go there. I saw a woman driving an old ambulance one time filled with pop cans, uncrushed in garbage bags so I asked the scrap man if there was money to be made in pop cans. He told me the going rate and I looked up how many cans to make a pound. It was about 30-35 cans. So I made the summer pop can challenge for my grandkids. Two boys -vs-two girls. I told them I’d match the money they made up to $300 to be used for school supplies and clothes.

Well, it was mostly the dads who pushed the kids to sort and crush the cans by stomping on them. Each pair went to the scrap yard with me and a regular load of scrap I end up having. The extra scrap was a bonus. We drove the truck onto the scale and remembered the total weight. Offloaded the regular scrap with the giant cranes grabbing and shifting the giant piles of scrap. Then we drove back to the special metals shack where they weighed the garbage cans full of crushed cans and received the weight ticket.

Then we drove back to the scales to re-weigh the truck. The tension was palpable! Some group mathematics was done. The truck had lost about 220#. Into the payment trailer which is dirty but looks like a bank vault due to the bullet proof glass and slipping my drivers license and weight slips under the glass.

How much will it be???

Around $7.50 for each team! Plus around $15 from the mixed scrap.

So we all had a good laugh and stopped for ice cream on the way back. I gave each kid $50 to get the school year started and thanked them for this little experiment. We have gone back several times just because we love recycling and tossing the stuff onto the giant pile.

Been there done that far too many times. Copper is one thing, everything else gets left in the alley.

 

[The Cobbler]

Too bad there's not a more effective way of recycling or repurposing