There’s a stereotype that dumpster diving is only for people who are financially struggling and have no other choice. But in reality, many do it as a way to reduce waste, help the environment, and give perfectly good items a second life instead of letting them end up in a landfill.
Below, we’ve gathered some amazing finds shared on the Dumpster Diving subreddit. From beautiful furniture to pricey electronics and untouched food, these discoveries show that one person’s trash really can be another’s treasure. Scroll down to see them.
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Pizza Owner Found Out That People Are Eating From The Shop's Garbage. This Is What He Did
Found This Little Guy In The Trash. Good News We Adopted The Trash Baby Say Hello To Jello
Was Not Expecting To Find These 😢
I’ve been trash picking for a couple years now, just for fun because I love finding cool things. Never in a million years would I have imagined finding something so heartbreaking. Last night, I found 5 kittens abandoned with no food or water. They were left in a box sitting beside a clothes and shoes donation bin.
People who do this s*u*c*k the Big Kahuna! A pox and a thousand voodoo curses on them!
My Favorite Dumpster Dive
Not Sure If This Counts But I Saved These Treasures From The Trash My Boss Was Throwing Away
It's Been A Good Week
Technicaly In Front Of The Dumpster But Still
Always Look In Cigar Boxes (14k)
Found A Telescope Next To The Dumpster After A Tenant Moved Out. It Works!
I Turned Into The Wrong Apartment Complex At Just The Right Time ☺️
My Schools Dumpster
That’s sacrilegious! They could have donated it to the city library to resell or even to a thrift store!
Super Old Books I Found In A Library Dumpster
They Called It Trash, I Called It A Custom Project. Two Of My Dumpster Dive Stools Fully Restored
Found Under A Construction Dumpster Yesterday
Thanks For Never Cleaning This And Then Throwing It Out! <3
In all seriousness: clean your fans and hairdryers.I do the hairdryers monthly and fans twice a year. it's a game changer for effectiveness and indoor air quality
Legendary Pull Today. Thousands Of Fruit Veg And Flower Seeds
My Work Threw It Away
My boss threw this in the rear of the store for storage ( to never use again). I asked him about taking it home and he let me. As far as I know, there is still quarters in it.
I Really Needed This Moral Boost
I recently lost everything so my dog and I are homeless. I really needed something to go right. I've been at a friend's house cleaning and testing everything. Everything was very well taken care of and almost all the games are complete in box.
Who in their right mind would throw that out? Even if you can't appreciate the gem you're owning, this has to sell for a lot!?
Favorite Find!!!
Today's Find Sweet
Found This
I Found A Baby Dumpster Diver When I Was Dropping Off At The Local Food Pantry
First Time Diving And I Hit The Jackpot
The Curb Gods Have Smiled Upon Me Today
Found Castle Grayskull
Found In Its Box In The Trash, Was Shocked To Find It Worked
I mean, it's only 43", so that's basically trash and it was right where it belonged. /s, I don't get this trend to 70" TVs in your average 15 sqm living room 🤣
My Late Husband Were Curb Picking And We Found A $100 Gift Card To Some Fancy Restaurant And We Enjoyed A Free Steak Lunch After Church
Second Haul Ever!
Dumpster Mantle Turned Into Christmas Decoration!
I Found A $2000 Gaming Laptop Last Night
Who Would Throw This Away???
If You Throw Money Away, I'm Gonna Collect And Claim It! Just Saying
Epson Projector From School Dumpster
Sorority Sister House Dumpster
If you check out colleges after the end of the school year you can find some pretty awesome stuff! After I graduated I was the last person out of the dorms and couldn't believe it. I was staying in town and moving into an apartment so I was able to get a bunch of things I needed for free.
Area Wide Yard Sales
Maybe this will help some having conflict on selling things they find. Participated in a community wide yard sale this weekend and made a decent amount in a day. Get that stuff out there and make that money. The economy is a mess.
Skip Dive (With Permission From The Home Buyer) Jackpot! 18k Gold, Platinum And Diamond Edwardian Ring
Now she's clutching her pearls because she can't find her great-grandmother's ring.
Found This Outside My Apartment
One Of My Best Dives To Date
Wow ! My Neighbor Threw These Out
My sister is like this: after streaming became common, she tossed most of her physical media, deciding that it was a waste of space. Of course, it turns out that even if you "buy" a film/album on a streaming service (as opposed to just subscribing to the service), it's still gone as soon as the service decide removes it from their catalog!
Ive Pulled Over 400 Lbs Of Candle Wax
NYC Curb Score: $1500 Herman Miller Chair
My Biggest Find Yet
I’ll go in order from least to most exciting: Pretty banged up Samsung monitor, the Xbox steering wheel controller, Corsair keyboard, Xbox 360 with a 120gb HDD, a ton of baseball cards, and obviously the holy grail of this pull, the pc. I wish I knew more about computers but from what I can say is it has: Msi GeForce Rtx 3060, two stick of Corsair ram, DDR4 boost motherboard.
Rescued A Pile Of Late 90s/2000s Movie Posters
"Anastasia" is a top quality animated film! (*sincerely, a 90s child lol)
First Big Score
Concluding The Dumpster Dive Experience Of A Lifetime
$200 Worth Of Candy!
I Don’t Even Know
I Literally Scored A Bounce House At Sam's
I’m In Disbelief- The Whole Cereal Aisle Got Thrown Out
Anyone Else Enjoy Diving For Treasures During The Rain? Toys For Tots Is About To Rainnnnn Gifts!!
One Of My Better Trash Finds
Happy New Year
I Rescued All The Squishmallows
Good Timing
An Exciting Afternoon For Dd’ing!
Score!
My Best Find So Far
Wife And I Looked Out Our Window Tonight To See This 75" Samsung Smart TV Resting By The Dumpster
Best Produce Haul Yet!
It's A Shame
This Is How A Millennial Can Afford Avocado Toast
Crazy Finds Today But Also Soooo Much Waste🙄
Always Makes Me Sad To Find Homemade Items That Were Clearly Made With Love In The The Trash
The New Kind Of Dumpster Diving
What The?
Maybe The Biggest Haul Yet
All of this food was thrown into the dumpster probably because of their "sell by" dates, not their expiration dates. All of it could have been donated to food banks or homeless shelters.
This Week’s Spread And A Dumpster Dinner
My Miracle Baby
Blanket Haul
Surviving W Dumpster Food
Last Nights Find
Donut You Dare Throw These Donuts Away!
A Year Supply Of Toilet Paper And Paper Towels. Dumpster Was Generous Yesterday
Christmas Hams Hit The Dumpster Like Clockwork
First Dive Success!!
Recently Started Diving. Cut Our Food Spending By 90%
I Always Suspected The Grocery Near Me Knew People Were Diving There
Someone Got Evicted. Dumpster Was Full Of His/Her Stuff
Weirdest Find Yet
Cops Pulled Up Last Night And Gave Me A Warning About Property Inside Being Owned By The Company That Owns The Dumpster
I Did It! Finally Got My Nerve Up
Found These In The Dumpster
Food Insecurity Is A Real Thing And This Sub Has Saved My Family
The Power Bestowed To Me By The Dumpster Gods Is Too Much To Bear For One Man Alone
Got A Christmas Sweater For The Community Dog From The Ross Dumpster
Treasures Rescued From The Dump From The Other Night
I Think The Truck Pulled Up And Just... Unloaded Directly Into The Dumpster
Exciting Haul!
Our TV Was Giving Up The Ghost, And Ended Up Finding A 4K TV Being Tossed Out (With Remote!)
Intervened Before They Got Trashed
How many onions can you actually eat unless you REALLY love French Onion Soup or Blooming Onions!
Valentine Dump
Saved Two Boxes Of These Cans
Candy Jackpot
This Week’s Aldi Collection
Top Shelf Finds!
Hahaha. For Brits of a certain age, "top shelf" means something very different.
Cool Dumpster Pants Are A Perfect Fit!
Did You Know The Dow Is 50,000?
Anyone Need Like 20 Chopped Kayaks?
Over $1000 Haul After A Power Outage
The produce would be fine but the dairy and meat? I wouldn't chance it!
My Very First Night Major Score I Am Hooked!!!!!! Thank You Giys For Inspiring Me!!!!
Very Grateful For Found Food
Success Rate About 10%
Well That’s A New One For Me… This Just Makes Me Wonder What They Throw Away! Diving Is Legal Where I Live And No ‘No Trespassing’ Signs
It grieves me how much gets thrown away that someone could use. Things could be offered for free on the Nextdoor web site, for example.
Far too much food that could feed families for days, sometimes weeks, is dumped in bins purely because "we don't make any money" is the business mind set. So much food, found in dumpsters, on this particular thread, should be going to those who need it. One particular post mentioned ~$1000 of food found in a dumpster, how many people could that really feed if it was given to a community pantry/food bank instead of going in the bin?
Load More Replies...It should be illegal to throw out food that can still be used. Many countries now require supermarkets to donate any safe foodstuffs to food banks, low income neighbourhood schools/kindys/daycares etc. A loaf of bread, some veggies and eggs can feed a family a nutritious meal, quite possibly more than one.
So much of the food could have been donated to food banks or to shelters instead of just tossed into the dumpsters. The shelters or food banks would love to receive it. I used to work for an in-store bakery: whatever we didn't sell that day, when we closed, we would wrap and put on shelves near the bakery. Next day, those packaged items where labelled as "day old" and put on the day old shelf. Next day, they were food banked.
It grieves me how much gets thrown away that someone could use. Things could be offered for free on the Nextdoor web site, for example.
Far too much food that could feed families for days, sometimes weeks, is dumped in bins purely because "we don't make any money" is the business mind set. So much food, found in dumpsters, on this particular thread, should be going to those who need it. One particular post mentioned ~$1000 of food found in a dumpster, how many people could that really feed if it was given to a community pantry/food bank instead of going in the bin?
Load More Replies...It should be illegal to throw out food that can still be used. Many countries now require supermarkets to donate any safe foodstuffs to food banks, low income neighbourhood schools/kindys/daycares etc. A loaf of bread, some veggies and eggs can feed a family a nutritious meal, quite possibly more than one.
So much of the food could have been donated to food banks or to shelters instead of just tossed into the dumpsters. The shelters or food banks would love to receive it. I used to work for an in-store bakery: whatever we didn't sell that day, when we closed, we would wrap and put on shelves near the bakery. Next day, those packaged items where labelled as "day old" and put on the day old shelf. Next day, they were food banked.
