OH, HELL YES! I don’t think there’s much I haven’t dumpster dived for. I’ve been known to whip off the road to check an interesting dumpter out, and I certainly can’t pass one without looking in.
I have an auction, so I sometimes go around collecting empty boxes from behind stores. Early this year I pulled up behind Aldi’s and there were trays of perfectly good blueberries and fresh mushrooms laying on top of the dumpster. Of course I collected them and found good homes for all. Amazing that people who wouldn’t be caught dead near a dumpster, will eat that stuff right up from out of my car.
I was raised to dumpster dive. When I was a kid, products like Tide detergent would offer rebates based on the number of products you bought and mailed the UPC in for. My mom would drop me off at one door of the laundrymat and pick me up at the other. I’d collect all the Tide bottles from the trash. 5 bottles might be worth $10–15 rebate. She had 3–5 addresses she could send to, so we might make $30–75 in a couple of hours.
There’s no shame in being thrifty. Found things are the best things.