Dumpster Diving FTW

Caitlin and I found this bike in the garbage today. The frame is a bit heavy, but it’s the exact right size for me, and rides fine with good brakes and shifting… So now I won’t have to borrow her bike any more, and the kids at Nefarious’s school won’t tease me for riding a “girl’s bike”! On the other end of the tech spectrum, there’s a good feature on Project Orion posted on Dark Roasted Blend. The TED talk by Dyson is worth watching if you’re a sci-fi (or just “sci”) fan.

Edit — After a discussion with my father on this subject, an important but obvious point was raised… If you look at the perfectly good items (from food wastage to stereos, bikes, building supplies, whatever), these far far far outweigh the $700 billion bail-out. If Americans (and probably most first-world cultures) were more conscious of what they threw away, the idea of “economic crisis” would be distant foolishness.

10 Comments

  1. Elizabeth wrote:

    Sweet!

    Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 10:19 am | Permalink
  2. You do know that is traditionally a woman’s frame right? Sorry to burst your bubble. :)

    Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 11:21 am | Permalink
  3. Shannon wrote:

    Yeah, I know — but at least it lacks the pink streamers which I think are a bigger tip-off for 5 year olds.

    Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 11:24 am | Permalink
  4. Ian wrote:

    It may be lacking streamers, but is that basket purple? Or is it just my eyes playing tricks on me.

    Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 12:59 pm | Permalink
  5. Nice. I am a huge fan of the TED talks.

    Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
  6. Shannon wrote:

    IRL it’s a black basket. It just looks purple in the photo… I am going to clean and paint it later in the week. I’m bringing my truck in for a little more lift so I’ll be biking for a while.

    Saturday, October 11, 2008 at 1:44 pm | Permalink
  7. JonnyButts wrote:

    Love the retro seat. How much more of a lift you getting done on the truck?

    Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 4:10 am | Permalink
  8. Richard Larratt wrote:

    yeah – you would not believe the stuff that gets tossed in the dumpster at my live-aboard best marina in Tarpon Springs –

    if we can lower the volume what is some rich bastard with a million dollar boat to do –

    you hire professional people to fix something – likely costs 200 plus an hour – and yeah they might take away what was being repaired or replaced

    you do it yourself and what do you do with a perfectly good old used tv, speakers, whatever, if you try to peddle it, you’ll telling poor people, I got a boat full of treasure, want some, it is hard to explain to some poor bastard with maybe ten bucks in his pocket that you should pay at least ten cents on the dollar, so you wait and he waits, for you to put it in the dumpster – where and which there is a $500 fine for the poor bastards getting their free stuff on the way to a land fill

    Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 8:16 am | Permalink
  9. ELY M. wrote:

    I used to dumpster dive a lot when I was in high school and few years later.
    there are a lot of good stuff in dumpster. I got a computer from a dumpster 1 or 2 times.

    Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 6:24 pm | Permalink
  10. jennifer kline wrote:

    that’s why freecycle.org rules. ALmost everything we need is already made x 10000 its just a matter of letting it go and letting it be known you are looking.

    Monday, October 13, 2008 at 1:09 pm | Permalink
Wow Shannon, that's really annoying! What is it, 1997 on Geocities? Retroweb is NOT cool!

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