Happy Holidays

Yesterday was Christmas. Yesterday it snowed. My family had a lovely day and last weekend we saw my mom’s side of the family, which was great. Since I’ve started this journey, I’ve gotten nothing but support from my family. I’ve learned so much over the past year about the environment and about appreciating my family. All of them, make me want to do better. Be more creative, to work harder to do things even though they’re less convenient and to just generally carry on even though I don’t think it makes much difference, which is the hardest thing for me to do.

This weekend was full of upcycling and crafting while keeping the environment in mind.

We made reindeer ornaments out of corks.

And bottle cap ornaments…out of bottle caps, which we had to cram seven people into a bottle cap size circle to go into the bottom bottle cap. We haven’t exactly finished that.

Everyone, even the guys, were totally on board with these crafts, which is interesting because when my aunt and I try to get them to do stuff at home it doesn’t work out quite as well. But there they were like Martin Stuarts!

I got a solder from my grandma and an awesome upcycling books book from my aunt.

My great aunt made me a lamp from a glass coke bottle that she found in the lake and popcorn bucket from the theater (I don’t think it was used).

And she made adorable bird feeders for my mom and aunt made from terracotta and old license plates.

My mom got me cruise control added to my car, which is a gift that keeps on giving and a ‘keep it green’ shirt  and more love than one could ever hope for.

I appreciate all the effort my family goes into caring about the things that I care about.

Lessons From Africa: Part 1

When I first started my upcycling venture, my great aunt, who I’ll just call my aunt because it’s easier, said ‘You’d really like Africa. They come up with a use for everything.’

Of the 21 least developed countries in the world, according to the United Nations Human Development Index, 11 are in West Africa. Fifty-five percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day. The region’s even poor by African standards – the average annual income is $309, compared to the Sub-Saharan average of $470.

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/02/18/the-dangerous-demographics-of-west-africa-2/

The Sub-Saharan region of Africa is the poorest region in the world.

To be honest, I don’t know that much about Africa. I’ve heard that one-half of the country is pretty normal as far as poverty is concerned and then the other half is the part that has the problem.

I was inspired by my aunt telling me that they are so creative when it comes to their reuse of everyday items and I tried to find some different facts to reinforce that, but I didn’t come up with all that much. I see pictures from time to time of their region. They’re rare and I couldn’t find the ones that had always stayed with me, but here are the ones I did find.

The fishermen from the West coast of Africa decorate their boats with brightly coloured geometric designs. A group finds these boats and turns them into furniture. This is just one of their designs. Click the link below for more.

http://inspirationgreen.com/artlantique-boat-furniture.html

Old clothes, a plastic bag, condoms, and some rope made into a football.

Repurposed Blockbuster Drop Box turned into an oven.

http://stay-curious.com/archives/2009/06/18/travel-tips-for-africa-and-other-places/

This is Harold. A few months before this picture was taken, an organization had come to talk to his community about the effects of poor sanitation.

“I nearly got rid of this bottle,” Harold explains, tracing the origin of an empty plastic bottle, now turned into a container fixed to a hand washing facility placed outside his family toilet.

“We use the bottle to fill water which we use to wash hands each time we visit the toilet. “From the time we started washing our hand, we no longer get sick,” the young boy explains. According to Harold, he always treasures the bottle and feels proud to have contributed to the eradication of diseases that kept affecting his family and entire community.

https://www.wvcommunities.org/so/blogs/can/Mpama/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=27

This site had a whole bunch of cool pictures, but I wasn’t sure if all of them were made in Africa. This was made from car tires. http://theplaydateblog.blogspot.com/p/gogreen.html

http://www.afrigadget.com/

I’m not finished talking about Africa. We have a lot to learn about their way of life, but this all I have to say about this particular subtopic. I hope your as inspired by this as I am.

The Best Worst Day Ever

Yesterday. Was the best worst day ever. Ever. You see, I have this cat, Cheerio is his name and about a week or so ago, he stayed out later than ever. We’ve had problems off and on with him not coming home at curfew and…let’s just say it makes us a little nervous. Then on Monday he goes ‘officially’ missing. My mom called and called, I fretted and worried until Wednesday. Then I started to cry. I never really thought he was dead, but I thought that someone may or may not have catnapped him, or we was stuck somewhere and my mom she thought he might be dead. None of our cats seemed to be worried. In the past, they seem to be able to sense these things and this was one of the reasons I hadn’t been reduced to an all-out meltdown, yet.

Anyways, yesterday morning he was still gone and I thought I would end up in a white roomed monstrosity if I didn’t do something, so what did I do? I went traipsing through these ‘woods’. They’re not really woods, I don’t think, but they’re pretty vast and woodsy so I’m calling them woods. These woods were on people’s property. At times I was literally walking through people’s backyard. I’m sure trouble would have been a consequence, but I didn’t really care. I walked through patches of thorns, swarms of mosquitoes, I’m very itchy now. Then I went to his other favorite place which is more like the grassland. It was quite an adventure to say the least. I even met some nice horses that sniffed me. It was kind of funny actually because I didn’t know he was there, I was looking around on the ground and then I looked up and he was in mid-chew just staring at me like I was completely nuts. I continued on my way and he followed me sniffing at my shirt. It was nice company.

After I got back, I got my graduation present in the mail. A new laptop, something I’ve wanted for forever. I was happy, but I felt guilty and couldn’t really enjoy it. It’s a pretty quick machine. I should be able to have these articles out twice as fast. Just kidding. I’m already going as fast as I can.

Then I had to run some errands which involved several people who had answered some questions incorrectly which involved me running on a wild goose chase to finally accomplish my goal. This was a huge convience, but it wouldn’t have been a huge deal, but I was stressed out about my cat and I was mad that I had to drive all around town because people don’t know how to do their job. And that wouldn’t have been a big deal either, but it just happens way too much. This seems to happen to me a lot and usually I can let it go, but this time it was just too much. I kept my cool, didn’t yell, didn’t even say that people need to learn to do their freakin job. I was very short with them though and I think I even heard them say something about it when I was leaving. I did say thank you and I tried to be as nice as I could. I used to work at K-mart, so I always try to be nice to people who work in those kind of crappy jobs, but this time it was too much.

After that, I put up some missing kitty signs, then came home, did some switching around on my computer tried not to freak out. Then I heard through the grapevine that this kid down the street saw a cat that looked like Cheerio the night before. Of course, kids aren’t always the most reliable source, but I felt good about it anyways.

Six o’clock comes, we’re working outside. Seven o’clock comes, nothing. Eight, nothing. Nine, nothing. Nine-thirty, I go to the closet in the hall to get some kind itch cream. Creak. I look out my bedroom window. I have a window air unit and the cats are always on there and it creaks. I don’t see anything, so I go back to what I was doing. Louder creak. I turn, nothing. Just as I turn to walk away, I see these reflective eyes, white…orange……………..and guess who it is? I run and get him, and he runs toward the door. He hesitates coming inside, the light seemed to be hurting his eyes. There was a big, giant bug trying to come in, I almost grabbed him, but he came in just in time.

One time, he came inside and had this huge gash on his chest. It was pretty deep, any deeper and guts may have been falling out. He didn’t really disappear that time, he came right home, but that’s what I kept feeling had happened. I thought maybe he was trapped. Other than some ticks (I loathe ticks) and some splotches of colored gunk, he seems to be physically alright. He’s extremely skinny (he was skinny before, but I can see his hip bones are very prominent now) and he’s seems a bit weird, skittish when it comes to somethings.  Maybe he is tired or just traumatized. He was starving and I put him in the garage to eat. We have five cats, some a little pigglier than others, so we have four bowls and he just went around and scarfed down food from each bowl.

So yes, that was my little tale. I slept like crap the night before last, so I’m still pretty exhausted, but I’m so relieved to have him back. I think we’re going to need a tracking devise of some kind cause I think that took fifteen years off my life and I’d really appreciate it if it didn’t happen again. I’m getting too old for this kind of stress, but I can’t imagine what he went through. Well, that’s my good news for the day. I hope you have an awesome day.

Cat Tales

Well, I’m on spring break this week, so I’m out of town. I didn’t know I would have access to the internet the whole time and I wasn’t sure if I would have enough time to do research for anything. Although I’m inspired by the vacation and kind of want to right about the different effects that traveling, hotels, so ons have on the environment I don’t have enough time to actually sit down and research it all, so I’ve decided to write about…my cats.

Yep, I’m imagining everyone rolling their eyes. Cats are not the more popular pets, but I can’t help it. I love them, I miss them, and so I’m going to write about them.

Harmony- Melody and Harmony are sisters. They look almost exactly alike and they’re inseparable.  Right now they’re being boarded at their doctor’s office. I know, what a horrible place to have to sleep. It would be like having to sleep at your doctor’s office. Harmony has to take medicine everyday, which she hates, because she has kidney problems and since I don’t trust anybody, but myself or parents to get it to her then we figure that the vet would be the next best option. Melody is there with her so they won’t have to be away each other for so long. I still feel guilty. She’s the only one who has to take the medicine, but she’s the only one who won’t eat it. Anytime I get it on the floor the other cats just come and lick it up, but not Harmony. Harmony is very ungraceful and she’s rotten to the core. When I let her in my room, she has a tendency to walk along my desk and knock everything off.  When she was younger, not so much anymore, she had habit or trying to cover up the water or food bowl with the mats that we always put their bowls on. She would also put toys in the bowl. One time we bought some toys at PetCo around Halloween and one was a pair of eyes and it was covered in feathers. The feathers were all torn off in a couple of seconds, but Harmony took the eyes and put them in the food bowl. It was a pretty weird sight. I thought it was funny, but my mother didn’t really appreciate it.

This is one of her favorite spots in my room. She's laying on a huge stuffed tiger that I got for Christmas one year. My cat's really like that tiger for some reason.

Melody is her sister and she’s definitely got the naughty gene. I’m sure her and Harmony are wreaking havoc at the vet’s office right now. Both sisters have a slight weight problem; Harmony more so because of her kidney problems. Melody at one point was more overweight, but she lost it all so now she has a flab on her stomach that flags back and forth when she runs. It’s pretty funny. When Melody and Harmony were kittens they used to watch tv with me, like literally watch it. Now they just sit on my books or homework or whatever I’m trying to write. One time I had my laptop open and I left the room, but when I came back a whole bunch of the keys had been ripped off. I don’t even know how they did, but it sure was annoying.

Melody in the dryer. Enough said.

Success!

Man, I had such a productive day yesterday.

First, my mom and I took our recycling to the center. I’ve been collecting wine corks to make cork boards, but it takes quite a lot just to make a decent sized one and it’s hard to find them around here because not very many people drink wine here. I’ve been asking restaurants, but they only give me four or five a week. So when I saw that they were having a wine festival I knew I couldn’t give up that opportunity. I had called the guy, who was running the event last week to explain and ask him if I could come, but he didn’t remember me nor did he understand what I was asking for. I had expected this would happen, so I made sure to get their early before it got all chaotic and busy.  That was the next thing we did. We dropped off some containers so the different wineries could put their wine corks in them. Since I’m under 21 he had some other guy go with me around to the different tables. He explained everything for me which made my time there a lot less stressful (I’m terrible at explaining what I’m wanting. I don’t know why, but no one ever seems to get it.) I told them I would come get them later.

Then we went dumpster diving. We went to several places down town, mostly to see what was in them. I didn’t need anything, but I just like to know for future reference and just in case I find something that I know someone else could use. We saw a cabinet, a tire, a vintage suitcase, and what looked to be a cardboard thing that carpet gets rolled on and we kept that for the kids. We did our first round at the mall. We haven’t gone before because mall security is always driving around, but this time we braved it and just did it quickly. We mostly found boxes, but we did find a computer monitor. I’m not sure if it works or not, but I have a pretty exciting plan for it anyways.

After we ate lunch and went to Wal-Mart (my worst nightmare) we went dumpster diving again. It was an electrical supply store that was by another place we had to stop at, so it was just a random decision.  I’m not 100 percent sure what we found, actually I have no idea what it was, but it had all these wires sticking out and there was about 50 lone wires that were in the bottom. We’ve decided that anytime we find electronics or wires that we’re going to strip the copper from them and sell it. We were pretty excited by our find.

Later in the day I went back to get my corks. I got a pretty good bag full; not as much as I wanted, but more than I would have gotten in like half a year of just restaurants alone so I’m grateful for it.

We have five cats that spend the day time outside and then come into the garage at night. They’re pretty messy and piggly little things so when they eat inside we have place mats to keep them from tracking food everywhere. We have to get some new mats because the current ones were falling apart. My mom said, “What could we upcycle into some new place mats?”

I hadn’t even thought about trying to come up with something, but as soon as she said it, I knew exactly what we could use. You see, my dad works at a gym facility and a couple of weeks ago they had to replace one of the belt (I think it’s called a belt, but just that part you walk and run on) of the treadmill. He asked me if I wanted it and my first reaction was, yeah that could make an awesome yoga mat. Of course it was later that I realized how silly that was. It was way too rough and knowing myself I could get seriously hurt on that. It’s not padded either, so I discarded my ridiculous idea and it has been sitting out there ever since waiting for me to use it. So as soon as she said it I knew that’s what we should use.  My dad cut it with a box cutter and you can see the kitties eating below. Take my word for it, I thought they were adorable before, but they’re way cuter now that they’re eating on their upcycled place mats. The picture below is of Cheerio (orange and white) and Melody and Harmony. The other two were scared by the camera, but you can see the two front paws of Mr. T. (He wasn’t named after the official Mr. T. We only named him that because he had a white T marked on his face.) Mystique is the other one and yes she was named after the Mystique in x-men. She is all black and I knew the second she was born that she was either going to be a Mystique or a Wolverine. She was a girl, so a Mystique she became. It suits her. Someday I’ll tell you all about them and how I came to find each one. In my opinion they’re very entertaining and they’re always on my mind, so it’s taken a lot of discipline not to write about them every time.

The kitties eating on their new place mats

Melody and Harmony and a hint of Mr. T eating on their new place mats.

So anyways, pretty much that was my day yesterday. Once again I must say, I love dumpster diving. Whether I find things that are universally useful or just the things that have the potential to be, it pretty much makes the world my oyster and there is nothing more exciting than that.

Poisonous Plastics

I think one of the more annoying things I’ve come to have knowledge about is the amount people who use plastic forks and spoons everyday and by every day I mean every day. On a regular basis people waste the money to buy the gas that they will then use to waste money to waste the environment instead of buying a pack of silverware ONCE and just washing them by hand or via dish washer. Plastic use is very hard to avoid, however using plastic cutlery isn’t a necessity. According to the EPA, 12 percent of the solid waste stream is plastic. Out of the 31 million tons of plastic produced last year, only 2.4 million tons were recycled. Approximately 40 billion plastic utensils are used every year in the USA alone, together with billions of Styrofoam and plastic cups, plates etc. Plastic bags could take up to one million years to decompose and a Styrofoam box could take more than one million years to decompose.

If one doesn’t care about the environment then they should give their health a thought.

Polyvinyl Chloride( #3)- This plastic is used mostly in construction and consumer goods, but the Center for Health, Environment and Justice and the Environmental Health Strategy Center have asked companies to limit their use of this plastic. It has serious side effects for its use. It’s made out of highly polluting and cancer-causing chemicals that have contaminated the areas where PVC is manufactured.  Some PVC is made out of plasticizers that will leach out of finished products and have been known to cause developmental and reproductive damage. When PVC is burned it leads to emission of dioxins that cause cancer, reproductive, developmental and immune problems. Putting these materials in landfills can cause the toxic substances to leach into ground water. PVC is difficult to recycle and contaminates other kinds of plastics when recycled with them.

Over 7 billion pounds of PVC are thrown away in the U.S. each year. Only 18 million pounds of that, about one quarter of 1 percent, is recycled.³

Polystyrene (#6)- This plastic is used to make foam food trays, egg cartons, carry-out containers, opaque plastic cutlery and other disposable food service items. The chemicals used to make this plastic can leak into food and beverages. According to the EPA, extreme levels can cause nervous systems effects such as loss of concentration, weakness, and nausea. Long term exposure can cause cancer, liver and nerve damage.

Polycarbonates and Others (#7): Number 7 plastics are the rejects from all the other categories, but they all usually include one thing and that’s polycarbonates. Polycarbonates are used in plastic baby bottles, plastic liners of metal food cans, sport water bottles and other items. Bisphenol- A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupter that used in making polycarbonates. A recent review of studies regarding BPA’s effects (Environmental Health Perspectives, August 2005) finds that more than 80 percent of published studies assessing the effects of low-dose BPA exposure on laboratory animals found significant effects, including alterations to brain chemistry and structure, behavior, the immune system, and male and female reproductive systems.

http://www.greenamerica.org/livinggreen/plastics.cfm

Just something to think about

The University of Dumpster Diving

Yesterday was totally awesome. Like all the other days of my weekend, it started as a bit of a downer, but have no fear my fellow readers…it turned out pretty great.

I’ll skip all the boring depressing stuff and dive right down to the good stuff. Literally.

My parents and I went my aunt’s, my mom’s sister’s, house and we had plans to do some dumpster diving later in the day, but my mom wanted to go check out the thrift stores around down town. Originally we were supposed to go see her on Saturday, but that was before all the depressing stuff happened and as part of our plans we were supposed to go check out their recycling center. They’re center was closed, but because this city is so awesome, it has smaller, I guess I’ll call them, sub-centers, throughout the city. They consist of a dumpster for glass, paper, cardboard, aluminum, tin, plastics, but they’re not the actual processing or whatever centers. I’m not sure what the difference is because our ‘center’ in my city is just pretty much the dumpsters and then they take them to other manufacturing plants and whatnots and then those places process them.

My mom likes to dive for coupons in the paper bins, so that’s what we started out doing. That’s how it always starts. And we always look for wine corks and bottle caps around and what we can reach in the bins. Then my aunt got a little excited and she suggested we go to the other mini-center. We did the same thing again, although this time we got a little more adventurous.

And by adventurous, I mean crazy.

In the tin can bin, we found something that we wanted. It was one of those vintage metal suitcases and I’ve seen made into things like tables and chairs and whatnots. I wanted it and when I want something, I get it.

The bins had lids, so the only way in was a pretty small square hole that hit me just above the waist. So with the help of my aunt and my mother, I hoisted myself up and I got pulled myself into the dumpster. This was my first time actually getting into a dumpster. Usually I just lean over the sides and throw the bags around and dig towards the bottom.  The reason for this is simply because I haven’t had the courage to get in there because once you’re seen then there is no possible way to hide what you’re doing and also cause it’s gross. I just hadn’t gotten that confidence to hold my ground quite yet. Well, yesterday was the day that I got it. But also, I guess I should mention that the place was empty when we first decided this was a good idea. While I was tromping around in the bin (which smelled horribly like tuna by the way) making as much ruckus as a bear in a tin can bin, four cars pulled up. Of course, you can’t just say ‘oh, I accidentally fell in to this bin.’ So, I grabbed my suit case and got the heck out of there. I think it was the first time that I actually didn’t care that there was people looking at me. It was fun. It was a thrill.

That was just the first part. We found a wine tasting place and dove for corks which I use for some projects that I’ll eventually have pictures posted for.

Then we went to the university dorms. The same ones that we went to for the first dumpster dive we did.  We found some awesome stuff. I didn’t think we’d find anything besides food since it wasn’t the end of the semester. Let me give you a bit of advice. Never under estimate the wastefulness, ridiculousness, irrationality of young adults.  We found shirts, shoes, notebooks, plastic plates (which my mom had been looking for for a project that she was working on), books, silverware, two pairs of pants and what looks to be a brand new hoody which has the school name on it. I was especially excited about the hoody for two reasons. One, I love hoodies. Two, this school will be my future university for the fall and they’re clothes aren’t usually the cheapest things ever. I think it will probably be too big, but it’s pretty cool anyways.  I said in my last post that I would be on the search for places to dumpster dive for clothes and so I would like this to be my first suggestion. University/College Dorm Dumpsters!

Creative Writing Assignment

I’m in a creative writing class and we’re working on vignette, a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives particular insight into a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object short enough to fit vine leaf. Pretty tall order since the only time my brain really actually functions and then my head gets filled with ideas and things that I just need to say. Anyways, I wrote about my first dumpster diving experience and I wrote in the point of view of a spoon that I had rescued. I turned it, nervous as all get out that the teacher would be closed minded and hate the idea. I think I was majorly dehydrated all week long. Anyways, turns out she totally loved it, for reasons that weren’t exactly my intention. She things it’s funny. There are some things she wanted to me change like the length, duh, and she wanted me to take the happy ending and make it where the spoon stays in the trash and it would be like inspiring people to want to save the spoon. What kind of story is that? What’s the point of saving the spoon if they don’t know what to do with it? I don’t know. I told her that the point was to make people see what they could do instead of throwing things away, blah, blah, blah. She said, okay do what you want that’s just what I think. Just now I got an e-mail from her and she said she kept laughing about all day and she kept thinking of alternate endings like being eaten away by chemicals or developing some kind of addiction to chemicals. I kind of see where she was going with it, but I still want people to see what they can do besides throwing things away. I’m trying to decide whether I should be offended about laughing or not. lol, oh well.

So anyways, I’m going to post it on here, you can tell me what you think or not, but I thought I should post it on here before I change anything.

A Repurposed Life

Hello, my name is Dixie and I’m a white plastic spoon. Once I lived with a family of four, but then I outlived my usefulness for them, so they threw me away.  I was separated from my brothers and sisters, but I was rescued from a dumpster by a young girl. She promised to give me a new life with a new purpose. I’ve seen her do it for others, so if I wait, I know someday it will be my turn. I know this is all a little confusing, so I’ll start at the beginning.

About two months ago, I was waiting in a bag on the shelves of a giant store with my hundred siblings. There were thousands of families like ours and we were waiting to be adopted out. A nice young family with a mom and dad, a baby girl and school-aged son came and looked at all of us.

“Hey! Hey! Pick me, pick me,” all of us would cry as people came down our aisle.

My family and I had been waiting for months, but now finally our time was here.

“It’s us. They picked us. We can finally be loved and fulfill our purpose! We can live happily ever after,” we cried in excitement.

Little did we know that our dreams would become our nightmare. We went home with the family and one by one my siblings were picked out, used, but they never came back.

At this time Kayla was in an environmental science class learning about the harmful effects that trash has on the environments.

She asked her mom one day, “Why don’t we recycle?”

“Because it takes up too much space and when we’ve tried it before, it drew bugs,” replied her mom.

“Could we try again? Even if we only do it the winter when there are less bugs, it will be better than nothing,” Kayla replied.

Persuasion was necessary, but finally her mother agreed.  For Kayla, recycling wasn’t enough. She knew she could do better, so she researched ways she could help more and that’s when she learned about upcycling or giving everyday products a new life and purpose. A purse made out of candy wrappers is a great example. Wrappers folded a certain way fold wrapper so they connect together. Then they make a chain. After being sewn together, the wrappers take the shape of a purse.

She started collecting things from her family’s trash, but there wasn’t very much variety, so she researched for other ideas. That’s when she heard about dumpster diving. It was around Christmas when she was researching this idea. Kayla’s great aunt, Chelle, was sitting beside her and kept asking her what she was doing.

“I’m trying to learn how to dumpster dive. I don’t have the project materials to make the different kinds of projects that I want. This may be the solution, but I’m trying to find out when to go, where to go, rules and whatnots,” Kayla replied slightly embarrassed.

“Really? That sounds fun. College dorms are perfect for that. And it’s right around the end the semester, so people are moving out and throwing the things they can’t bring with them,” said Chelle.

The next day Kayla’s mom, dad, great aunt and Kayla went to the dorm dumpsters and did some digging.

She found tons of cans which she recycled, a printer/copier/scanner, some galvanized metal pipes, wood, table legs, a comforter and pillow that she washed and gave to the homeless shelter. The pillowcase had $207 in it. Since she and her mom didn’t feel comfortable in keeping it, they split it up and gave it to five people they knew who could use it. They found some other things too, but those were the most unique.

Upcycling has become Kayla’s passion which she tries to share with others through her blog as she writes about her experiences with dumpster diving and posts tutorials for the projects that she’s made.

Whenever she is asked about why she dumpster dives, Kayla says, “People always say that I’m giving them a repurposed life, but I say that the things I’ve collected have given me a life.”

 

First time’s the charm

My first experience dumpster diving was the weekend before Christmas when I finally came to the notion that maybe dumpster diving would give me the means to make my crafts with.

My great-aunt, my mom and dad came with me and we went to some university apartments. My aunt, uncle, cousin and grandma did not join in our adventure and I must say that they missed out.

My mom had always said that my great-aunt was awesome, but I never spent much time with her. I had always thought she was awesome because she had a dog and I loved her dog, but other than that, I can only think of handful of occasions when we’ve spent time together. Anyways, my mom said they always had the best time when they were kids and she was always gung-ho and up for anything.  Turns out, like always, my mom was right.

During our first trip, we found a copier/printer/scanner, some wood, a broken floor lamp, some metal pipes, pop tabs/cans, a pillow and comforter that we took to the homeless shelter. In the trash we saw lots of food, boxes, one of those cushy, foam bed things, more wood and etc. We would have taken the cushy bed thing, but it was kind of dirty and we didn’t have the room in our car. We actually found more awesome stuff that we could have taken, but we didn’t have room for it in car and although we could shove some more stuff in, but we had to drive two hours and no one wants to do that with stuff piled on our laps to the ceiling.

So anyways, that was the great adventure we had on the first go round. Not to mention, the great attitudes we got from the people who saw us. Dumpster diving is not the most popular sport in America. I find it fascinating because we just waste so much money to have the latest thing when the old thing works just fine. What’s worse is that we throw it away instead of giving it to someone who could use it or recycle it. I find  when in the right time and place, dumpster diving is super fun and productive.

Of course, I have yet to find anything as valuable as the scanner/copier/printer. Mostly I find the trash that I’ll turn into crafts which is valuable to me, but not to too many other people.