Dumpster Diving a brief story

Dumpster diving while illegal all over the world, in the United States is considered legal due to the 1988 California v. Greenwood case in the U.S. Supreme Court held that there is no common law expectation of privacy for discarded materials and that therefore the police did not require a warrant to search through trash. Dumpster diving, while legal, is an issue with a lot of dumpster companies and customers who have rented dumpsters at their houses or construction sites. There is nothing people can do besides placing the dumpster behind a locked gate or in an enclosed area. But, it does provide a lot of great stories about all kinds of things that people have found.

We start with the most common things found in a dumpster that people find in dumpsters. They find discarded clothes, shoes, edible food, serviceable electronics, usable furniture, dishware, workout equipment, and even jewelry. Sometimes they find, at department stores dumpster overruns or irregularly sized items that just never sold and are in perfect condition.

A group of students in Iowa put on a "dumpster diving scavenger hunt" to help underprivileged kids at their school with school supplies. It went great! At an office supply department store, they found multiple packs of pens and pencils, calculators, art supplies, notebooks, and even a printer and a workable computer. The one thing they didn't count on was the dead body! It was found by a student thinking it was a mannequin and tried to pick it up when she realized it was a corpse. The proper authorities were called and everything was taken care of. They won't forget that scavenger hunt for quite some time. 

There have been movies and documentaries about dumpster diving. "Surfing the Waste: A Musical Documentary about Dumpster Diving" a film by Paul Aflalo was a movie about Freeganism and they believed everything they need to survive can be found through other people's trash. It was a gritty look into the difficult lives some chose to live but they made the most of what they found. I was impressed with how much they were able to make useful for themselves and others from the rubbish they found in the dumpsters. Perhaps a commentary on current-day excesses and waste, but whatever. Another acclaimed documentary a 2010 documentary "Dive" by Jeremy Seifert won a few independent film festival awards with its portrayal of a man being able to live and eat well of the things we throw away. It is another movie to make us feel bad about how much we waste. I am just glad this guy was able to find it and eat it! Good for him, he saving the world one dumpster dive at a time.

Don't Dumpster Dive!