Saving the Earth, dirty girl style

Enjoy this guest post from one of my absolute dearest friends since the days of tee-ball and teeter-totters, Sue Weber.

I am a dirty girl. I am also technically a thief, though one could hardly argue that garbage is still the possession of the person who disposed of it, but hey, it is fun to call myself a dirty thief. I am a full fledged dumpster diver, initiating my adventures about 4 years ago. I fell into the concept of dumpster diving quite by accident, as I wasn’t raised on junk—my parents, though very thrifty, were not garage salers and did not take other’s “trash”. In fact, I remember my dad pointing out an old beat up truck driving down our road slowly on garbage night. The truck creaked to a stop to pick up my neighbor’s chair sitting on the side of the road and the driver threw it into the back of his truck with the rest of his trash treasures. “Hillbillies,” my dad said. We laughed, and oh my, here I am 20+ years later doing the same thing, minus the beat up truck. Guess I’m a hillbilly.

I have always enjoyed this beautiful earth, listening to John Denver music and digging it, reading Emerson and Thoreau and falling in love with Transcendentalism. I scoffed at those rich yuppies that were stripping our farms and forests to build their boring, mundane, cookie cutter million dollar homes and then clouding our atmosphere with their Humvees during two hour commutes to work. And then, horror of horrors, I became one of them, minus the million dollar home and Humvee. It happened after I married. We were dual income, no kid newlyweds and the government loved us, though we felt poor being fresh out of college and low on funds. So to avoid having to pay so much in taxes we decided to buy a house, though we had no money for a down payment. No problem. The new home industry was quick to sell and let us pay the down payment in monthly installments while the house was built. So long story short, I found myself living 25 miles away from Cincinnati, in a cookie cutter place built on top of an old tree farm. Talk about a conflict of interest.

Disgusted, I immediately set aside a part of my yard for a garden, started recycling before curbside pickup was offered in my area, and went organic with my lawn care. But it wasn’t until I took a Voluntary Simplicity course offered through the then Cincinnati Earth Institute that I was introduced to the excitements of dumpster diving. I was also introduced to the zany world of Amy Dacyczyn, tightwad extraordinaire, who further awakened me to the possibilities awaiting discovery in dumpster diving and garage saleing. When I started to really look, I noticed that people truly were throwing away still very useful things, not junk. Maybe out of guilt for giving in to suburban living, or perhaps because I am a cheapskate myself, I began to pick those useful things up.

My technique has not changed over the years, as I don’t drive around neighborhoods looking for things but instead take a passive approach and look at other’s trash if I happen to be driving down their street on trash night, or I look when I take our wonderdog for a walk. If I find something, I return home and wait to go out after dark, being petrified of a homeowner catching me in the act. Depending on the size of the item I may take our pickup. I have picked up incredibly amazing things over the years: 2 gas grills (one we kept and the other we gave away), a park bench that has since disintegrated but it did last us 2 years, a kitchen table and chairs which were given to a sister moving into her first place, and several toys for my children. One toy I was simultaneously horrified and excited to later find out retailed for over $60! To think a perfectly clean, unbroken, fun toy was going to go to the dump!!! My girls love it.

And then a strange thing began to happen: people would see things I picked up and ask me where I got them. I sucked up my pride and told them and…..they were shocked! Then it got just plain weird. We started getting periodic phone calls that went mostly like this, “Hey I know you can’t stand stuff being thrown out, so I have _____ that I don’t need anymore/doesn’t work right, do you want it?” Through this we got a play kitchen, a swingset, a Little Tykes outdoor playset, a sandtable for the girls, antique wood doors, a vacuum that needed a new belt, dining room table with chairs, sofa table, and a couch with a pullout bed. Free!

The problem that I am running into now is that there is no possible way for me to take in all of the items I see. I lack the storage space required until I find a new home for the dumpster gems, or I lack the time needed to adequately fix items needing repair before giving them away. For instance, I came across two bikes a few weeks ago while out on my Sunday night walk. One, a young boy’s bike, seemed in no need of repair. The other was a women’s bike that appeared to need some chain work. I already have a bike, so I didn’t need the women’s bike, and I have girls so I don’t need a boy’s bike. I still had to resist returning to grab them, fix them up, and donate them to Goodwill. Unfortunately, I am quite strapped for time right now as I have returned to school. So I passed on the bikes, but they have been haunting my dreams screaming, “We were still useful!!! And now we are sitting (not rotting) in a dump!!!”

Last weekend was yet another source of agony for me, as I saw an air compressor, computer parts, and another gas grill sitting on the curb. Again, with tests, papers, a family to tend and a house to keep from self destructing, I simply lacked the time those items would have required. The guilt is pervasive. Though the guilt shouldn’t be mine but theirs–it floors me what people are throwing out, useful things that others could benefit from! I know for some it is simply a matter of not knowing how to fix an item, such was the occurrence with the vacuum cleaner—a single mom who didn’t know how to fix it. But I can’t help but be astounded that the effort to have it fixed or to find someone who wants it wasn’t even considered an option. In our wasteful society, I shouldn’t be surprised that the “toss it away” mentality applies to anything, big or small. Though I could be happy, as I will continue to find items to grab in the garbage, but it would be nice if more would join me. I’m kinda running out of space. Besides, dirty thieves like to stick together.

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