Scavenging...

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Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Being driven back to Leicester on Thursday by Mum, in slowish traffic, I found myself looking at all the litter and stuff that had collected along the verge of the A34, and realised that I was evaluating it for usefulness in the event of complete society breakdown - so plastic sheeting was good for shelter, paper and card could be used for kindling, oddments of wood as fuel, decent lengths of rope or ratchet strap would be really handy, old glass or plastic bottles for storage, etc.... Add that to the fact that I asked for and got for Christmas, Richard Mabey's book "Food for Free", and I think I'm subconsciously preparing for something. I've always been a bit of a skip diver as well... Is it just related to my hoarding tendencies (never throw it away if it might come in handy one day)....?
 

bonj2

Guest
If people are throwing stuff away it's usually rubbish. I've been at the tip a few times this last couple of weeks and at least twice I've seen people throwing computers away, I thought about salvaging them but they're probably throwing them away for a reason.
 

andygates

New Member
I'm glad it's not just me. Mind you, I check out the roadkill too. Always remember Lovely Hugh's golden rules: How fresh is it? How flat is it?
 
OP
OP
Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
bonj said:
If people are throwing stuff away it's usually rubbish. I've been at the tip a few times this last couple of weeks and at least twice I've seen people throwing computers away, I thought about salvaging them but they're probably throwing them away for a reason.

Not necessarily. I dunno about computers, I admit, but the amount of bikes and items of furniture that are just dumped, when they are still perfectly useable, is amazing. Despite there being some way of recycling stuff, for almost every town (charity shops, council/community projects etc), many people just think it's easier to dump it at the tip. And the staff at the York tip used to salvage stuff to sell, including TVs and so on - they simply intercepted working stuff before it got chucked in the skips. It seems these days that a lot of people have the money to buy a new one of something before the old one wears out, just because they want to. Especially with stuff like electronics that goes 'out of date' quickly.

I got a nice old leather sprung bike saddle out of a skip once. Gave it a quick wipe over to get the dust off, and sold it a little later to a mate for a tenner.
 
OP
OP
Arch

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
andygates said:
I'm glad it's not just me. Mind you, I check out the roadkill too. Always remember Lovely Hugh's golden rules: How fresh is it? How flat is it?

Not that long ago, a friend and I retreived a stoat so that she could demonstrate skinning it - saw it on the way out to riding, moved it to the verge, picked it up on the way back, on our bikes, having cadged a plastic carrier back at the stables. Very fresh it was. Rigor just setting in when we picked it up, and wearing off an hour or so later.

Not that I'd fancy eating stoat. Nice fur though.
 
Patrick Stevens said:
You're not setting yourself up as the community hangman are you? :biggrin:
I'm sure Arch would just love to make sure that you are well hung Patrick.

I love finding wild food but roadkill bothers me. Probably because I'm just squeamish.;)
 
Chuffy said:
I love finding wild food but roadkill bothers me. Probably because I'm just squeamish.;)

They can taste a bit rubbery from the tyre. :biggrin:
 

Cab

New Member
Location
Cambridge
Excellent book that Food for Free. When you're next walking along some grass, walk round the edges of the field, look for blewit mushrooms. Loads about at the moment.
 

Zoiders

New Member
Cab said:
Excellent book that Food for Free. When you're next walking along some grass, walk round the edges of the field, look for blewit mushrooms. Loads about at the moment.
Just be sure they are the right mushrooms

You dont want the police to find you running around the fields naked, smeared in animal blood, claiming to be the horned god
 

PrettyboyTim

New Member
Location
Brighton
bonj said:
If people are throwing stuff away it's usually rubbish. I've been at the tip a few times this last couple of weeks and at least twice I've seen people throwing computers away, I thought about salvaging them but they're probably throwing them away for a reason.

The thing is, people will throw things away if there's not much wrong with them, just to have an excuse to buy something new. I knew someone who got a new laptop largely because she was always having problems with viruses on the old one - physically there was nothing wrong with it.
 
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