The saying goes, "one man’s trash is another man’s treasure." Another person could easily find a purpose for a thing you consider has no value or is useless. But such things are often just thrown out, maybe because it’s too much work to find a person to sell it or to give it to, or maybe the person throwing out something really thinks that no one could possibly use it.
Reddit user wayne88imps had a feeling that garbage men and women should see all the good and maybe weird things people throw out, so they asked “Garbage men/women of the world. What's the best/worst thing you have found 'thrown away?'" This post got more than 65k likes and over 8k answers and Bored Panda went through them so you could read the best of the best.
All the photos used in this article are just for illustration and are not the actual photos.
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#1
I found my wife in a pile of garbage while working on a garbage truck.I was working being trained as a garbage man and one day a women was throwing out way to much good stuff, boxes of books and I could see she was trying to fill a car and mini van, so I figured she was moving and having to sacrifice good stuff. I talked to her and offered to come back later and help her move so she didn't have to throw away so much stuff, and it ended up being a story that her husband left her for her best friend, and they moved in together, and she couldn't afford the townhouse anymore as she was undergoing cancer treatment.
We got married one year later. I like to say I found her in the trash and fixed her up, but the truth is it is opposite. I was the trash she fixed up I.
Image credits: homestead1111
#2
My father was a garbage man when I was born. I don’t remember because I was like 3 months old. But my first dog was in the trash. My dad stopped. Picked up a box and heard some shuffling on the inside and there were two puppies. My dad kept one and the driver kept the other. They were brother and sister (my dad assumed). He kept the male and named him Jasper. He was literally my best friend growing up. I had him for 13 years and my dad tells me the job was worth it just for that dog. He called the police and animal control on the residence but doesn’t know what happened after that. All I know is I’m 37 and still love that dog so much. I’m so thankful my dad saved him and his sister.
Image credits: Glove_Compartment
#3
Grew up a small town so everyone knew everyone. Our garbage man (Lee) would regularly cull out items for us because he knew my dad would tinker on them. Lee gave me my first bike, which only needed to be painted, and so so many books.He passed a few years ago. When I saw the notice I called up my sister and we had a bit of a nostalgic cry about what a nice man he was to us kids.
Image credits: ReadontheCrapper
#4
Oh man, my time to shine! I’ve been working at a waste transfer station (“garbage dump”) for many years.The worst I’ve seen (just garbage, not counting stuff brought to the hazmat department):
a freezer stuffed with a skinned, rotting, headless deer carcass. We nearly called the cops before we realized it wasn’t human.
Used needles. The worst being a tie between “porcupine couch” and the lady who literally handed me a paper bag full of syringes she found during a park cleanup.
large container of old crystallized picric acid. Bomb squad had to deal with that one.
The best:
a high end laptop in perfect condition except for a tiny crack on the lcd panel. Easy DIY repair that took $40 and 5 minutes, thing would’ve cost $1.5K new
enough brand new furniture to literally furnish my whole apartment
a high end military grade inflatable boat, brand new
The weirdest:
a 1st gen platelet counting machine, complete with weird tubes of bright green liquid and mercury. When I was prepping it for hazmat disposal I had to call the company that bought the company that made it for some info... they never digitized the records but the oldest repair tech still working was super excited because he remembered servicing them 50 years ago.
coffin. No body, just the coffin. Couldn’t see anything wrong with it either.
buckets of testicles (from a ranch) that had been sitting out in the summer heat for a week. Smelled so bad my coworker hurled. That’s not the weird part... the weird part is the guys wanted their buckets back. Do you know how bad it has to smell to make a garbage collector puke? And they wanted them back?!
the $10k duffel bag. Lady came in super upset because earlier she threw out a duffel bag that she didn’t know her boyfriend kept cash in. Over $10,000 in cash. We never found the bag.
16 full size barrels of old vegetable grease some guy had saved up in his garage. He was planning to make a biodiesel car or something.
Edit: a lot of people are asking if we get to keep stuff. Officially, no. It’s not against the law as far as I know (except for illegal stuff like drugs), but it’s against our policy. However workers do salvage things... as long as it’s discreet and they’re not selling it, management doesn’t get involved. Selling stuff is a big no.
We don’t fight over stuff. In fact we’ll keep an eye out for things colleagues might need. Most of what we salvage is actually tools and stuff we use at the dump. I’ve also started a management approved program to give away free household products that would otherwise be hazardous waste (paint, oil, cleaners, etc). Some dumps also run thrift stores to divert materials from landfill, but we don’t have the space.
Image credits: Moldy_slug
#5
A Lane cedar chest. I was helping my dad clean out this lady's garage and she said as long as we were there, we might as well take that, too. She said she always hated the smell of cedar but her husband wouldn't let her get rid of it and now that he was dead, she was sending it on its way!The veneer was never in great shape but it still keeps my wool items safe. I've had it for over 30 years now.
Image credits: auntiepink
#6
I live in an area where there are many wealthy people. I’m the one that will take peoples trash, well not so much now because I’ve learned that less is more but things I’ve found- Perfect 5 channel surround with wireless rear speakers- now in my garage Several almost working riding lawnmowers. Usually need about $50 and some work and then I sell for 500-1000. Nice Yamaha kids gas 4 wheeler. Couldn’t get the truck there fast enough. Plastic roller coaster that both my kids played on for many years and gave us many memories. But after a while I started to get why people do it. It’s fun to see people excited about something free that they will use. So for a lot of things I will either put by the street and people will come ask if it’s really free or I will post it for sale and we will negotiate a price and then when they get here I will tell them they can have it. That way it’s something that someone really wants. I had a nice TV stand that this Mexican dude showed up for, we had agreed on $150, he borrowed a truck from a family member and drove over an hour for it. He had neck tattoos (I have some too but they were covered I say that to say I don’t judge people for tattoos but he definitely looked like a tough dude) and when I told him he could have it he didn’t understand why I would do that but when he finally figured out it was just because, he got emotional and wanted a hug. That s*** had me floating for like a month. Pay it forward if you can. You never know who’s day or week you’re gonna make.
Image credits: cannonrecneps
#7
When I was a kid I found a couch. It wasn't very big, but thats why it was so great. 10 year old me was able to carry it all the way home by myself. (About a block and a half.) This was before kids having cell phones were huge so I didn't call my parents about it first and they were at the store anyways. So I took the couch home and put it in my room. It was pretty dated... Made of some material I've never encountered again so far, but I thought I was THE S***. I had a whole couch in my room. How many 10 year olds had couches in their room? Well my parents came home and clearly weren't happy, but given I carried it up to the second story and got it into my room they let me keep it. (My down stairs neighbor helped me.)I felt like a king. I had a couch. I had a big box TV for my play station. I had it all. Simpler times.
Image credits: deadlyturtle22
#8
My little brother was emptying out a client’s basement and everything was going to be thrown away so my brother was told to keep anything he wanted. He saw a nice looking bike and took it. Turns out it was a Dahon mu p8 30th anniversary limited edition and in perfect condition. From what I found on it, it goes for over $4K.
Image credits: PsychedelicWeaselGun
#9
My father was a garbage man who also did clean-outs for homes and businesses, where they'd rip apart the entire building and throw everything out in their dumpsters. He worked on a ton of really massive houses, some worth 10s of millions of dollars, one was worth 40 million and wasn't even the permanent residence.Best things I got as a kid: A pretty much unused trampoline with a net and everything.
A go-kart that my dads friend was able to fix up and we used all the time (I live on a dead end).
And once he cleaned out a deli that was closing down, and we no joke had unlimited Snapples and Sodas of every flavor for almost a year. I'd drink the Snapples while out on the trampoline. I used the hell out of all 3 of those things in my childhood
Image credits: paulippolito
#10
Not me but my brother. Someone apparently threw out grandpas stuff from the attic after he passed away. This was the last scheduled pickup at the house and everything was already moved out, nobody living there. Driving an automated (claw to grab and dump) truck, my brother was irritated there were these 2 bowling bags he had to get out to throw in the truck. He realized they seemed a bit heavy, so he opened them to see why. Inside there was real silver silverware/flatware. He ended up selling it for scrap prices to a jeweler and got $3000.
Image credits: Jedimasteryony
#11
Not a garbage collector, but here's a cool story about how garbage collectors in Ankara, Turkey gathered a bunch of books that were thrown away. They then bring them back to the depot where there's a library's worth of books now. They've saved about 20,000 books from the incinerator.One person's trash, is indeed another's treasure: It's always trash can, and never trash cannot.
#12
In the eighties I picked up a number of Philips colour tvs. I had a few, so fixing them was just a question of swapping parts. I then sold them cheaply or gave them away to fellow students.
Image credits: gozba
#13
in the early 2000's my best friends dad was a garabge man. I used to hang out at their house a lot and i remember him finding uncut sheets of hologrpahic dragon ball z trading cards in the trash and bringing them back. They were super dope to see.
Image credits: TheeElite
#14
Obligatory not a garbage man but once many years agoI was asked to deliver books leftover from a church rummage sale to a minnumum security woman's prison. The books almost filled the bed of my pick up. When I got there six inmates were assigned to unload the books. You would have thought all those musty paperbacks were made of gold. The women were delighted and very grateful.#15
Not a garbage man, but someone dumped a 6'x3' patch of drooping agapanthus on the side of the road.Managed to get it into the back of a rhino atv to get it home.
I sawed that monstrosity into like 18 patches. Most lining my yard, and some potted.
I was so excited. It really helped get me started into gardening. Now I'm propagating bird of paradise, jade, and some other plants idk the name of. I also potted two ash tree seedlings for future transplant, but I might try to bonsai one.
#16
My dad was a trash man when I was growing up. He would always be bringing cool stuff home to us. He used to always say that the "poor" neighborhoods had the most trash and they threw away literally everything.The two best ones that I can think of was a brand new BMX bike and like 20 Nintendo 64 games that he found at a video rental store.
Also once at the transfer station one of his co-workers found a "dummy arm" in the big pile of trash. He pulled it and it ended up being a dead guy, the police later determined that it was a homeless person that got picked up and died when the trash truck compacted him.
#17
before I was born my mother found a huge painting of mushrooms. it’s blue and yellow and certain parts of it glow in the dark, it’s one of the few things I have of her and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and my description gives it no justice :)#18
Not a garbage person, but I live in a large apartment complex. I could have furnished multiple apartments with all the stuff that gets thrown out here (and partially furnished mine), but the best thing I’ve seen in the pile was one of those grandfather clocks you can make from a kit. Still looked very nice, but it needed some fixing to get it to run again. I’m still waiting to find a piano (I would like a piano).
Image credits: Frosty-Hour5112
#19
Worked cleaning apartments one summer in a college town. Foreign students are notorious for leaving lots of valuables behind. The most outlandish item I came across was a brand new BMW that they left abandoned in the complex parking lot.#20
My grandfather use to work for the city garage and would repair alot of the trucks, including the garbage truck. He once found a jewelry box that had cheap jewelry in it but he noticed there was a lose stone that looked like a diamond so he kept it. 20 years later he finally took it to a jewelry store to see if it was real. It was and it was worth 3,000 dollars so he made it into a new wedding ring for my gram.#21
My friend found a PS4 (excellent condition) and a brand new controller still in the box#22
Friend of ours found two bullet resistant vests with paramedic written across them, being thrown out behind a fire station. I guess the expire or something.
Image credits: timias55
#23
I found a cardboard cutout from the Mr and Mrs Smith movie release when it was in theaters. I put Mr Smith on one side of the truck and Mrs Smith on the other side. Got a few fun honks going down the road with a gorgeous Angelina Jolie on the back of a trash truck
Image credits: stu0027
#24
We sometimes have to do house clearances at work (dead people with no family and the house is to be sold). Lot of the time stuff isn't worth the time it takes to sell it so we get to keep stuff that's gonna be thrown out, I've gotten so much fabric, embroidery thread, all sorts of sewing/dress making materials, I will never have to buy another buttons in my lifetime, I like to think the old ladies it used to belong to would be glad to know it was gonna be used.#25
Living near an $$$ college you wouldnt believe the s*** kids chuck when they are inna hurry to move out. A few springs ago I found a very nice Banana Republic brown leather bomber jacket with puke or soup on the sleeve. I wiped it down with armor all, vacuumed the crumbs from the pockets and sold it for $125 that night. My best haul was a nightclub that had a minor fire on their outdoor deck and they decided to gut and remodel the whole place. I pulled from the dumpster 3 preamps, 2 300w stage speakers and a guitar amp. Sold all for > $500 the next weekend.#26
My dad worked at a landfill for most of my childhood and my brother and I both got into related companies that directly dealt with landfills for a while. One of the most common things I remember hearing about and seeing all the time were clothing with minor irregularities that had to be thrown away by said clothing company. It was stuff like Roxy, Vans and other stuff you'd see at places like Tillys or similar clothing store. One of my old coworkers families basically were clothed their whole life from this type of clothing being dumped. The clothing was clean or could be cleaned to a decent level that the clothing was fine to wear. It was dumb stuff like small rip, missing zipper or some other weird thing they couldn't sell it that way. Everyone at the landfill was basically in on the scheme. When the truck with the clothing pulled up to the fee booth, someone would radio people at the dump site and it was like a pack of vultures, everyone on the site would swarm the truck as soon as everything was dumped out of the truck.#27
Finally something I can contribute too! I do trash at apartments. In the year I've worked the job, I've found and kept:-a couch
-2 desk chairs
-a floor lamp
-deck furniture
-a TV stand
-my cat
-various decorations I've given to my mom
Some things I've sold
-a bike, $40
-some outdoor vases, $30
-a bed frame, $50
-an original xbox with at least 80 games all in a box, $20 (to my friend that collects old video games)
But yeah, it's crazy what people throw away.
#28
Worked as a garbage man for a very short time last summer, but the best thing I found was an edition of my local newspaper from the day after the Challenger exploded.
Image credits: GoldCyclone
#29
Found a 55 inch tv next to the dumpster 4 years ago. It was missing 1 hdmi port on the side. It looked like someone might have tripped and ripped it out. Anyway, I opened it up googled the motherboard serial number and found a brand new replacement for like $60 less then 25min away....needless to say I called ahead on my day off picked it up and it works like a charm. Still use the tv to this day.55in Sony 2012 lcd tv. I have chromecast with google tv hooked up to it now and it's awesome.
#30
Not a Sanitation Worker BUT my Uncle Was :)And he often brought back some pretty sweet items!
We grew up not dirt poor, but definitely paycheck to paycheck and anything that helped us out was a godsend. So when our Uncle often got hauls from his work he'd share his spoils with the family and the neighbourhood at large.
There was one time a whole fleet of Razor Scooters had been thrown out by some store due to minor defects with them. The local kids didn't give a damn about a design issue or the sticker was on the wrong way and the like, we all had a ball when we got our new (branded to boot) play thing.
Also there was a time an Ice Creamery had to dispose of a lot of their stock because of exceeding the Best Before Date. OH MAN WHAT AN EPIC SCORE that was for the family. We loaded up as much as we could and had a stockpile that lasted us quite a while. Good times!
#31
I worked as a garbage man in 1972. A small stray cat jumped into the back of the hopper to look for food. I took him home and named him saigon. This was the best thing. Second best thing someone threw out an old pair of skis. There was snow on the ground and me and the other guy each took a ski and stood on it and held onto the truck, great fun. Third best we found an entire case of "brylcream" (look it up) and me and the other guy had brylcream fights all day, total mess (I stripped off before going into my house after work). Worst things a garbage can that had live coals in it that started our truck on fire.#32
When I was a kid my dad worked for a company that hauled away dumpsters and at one point found an old alto sax complete in the box. Ended up playing it for four years up until high school when it was stolen, couldn't play after that since my family couldn't afford a rental let alone pay for a new one.#33
Not a garbageman, but I once found a Hohner Arbor Series telecaster electric guitar in the trash. Had someone fix it up, and it plays like a goddamn dream.#34
I'm not a garbage man, but I once scored a whole custom built staircase from a dumpster. It was in perfect condition but apparently built to the wrong spec. It worked great for my barn#35
One time my brother who was working as a garbage man at the time brought me back a brand new Nintendo DS for my birthday. Idk he really lucked into that one#36
Not a garbage man, but have rescued projectors, computers, furniture and even a very expensive Yahama keyboard (just needed a new plug) from skips / being thrown out. Loads of music scores. A dining room table with nothing wrong with it.I may be just about to get a 65" touchscreen TV that's no longer touchscreen, too, depends on what happens to it over the next few days.
Large companies throw all sorts away and they're far more focused on "I just need to get rid of this" than spending the time to find someone to take it.
By the same token, I've also binned about 20 fully working interactive whiteboards because I couldn't get anyone interested in taking them.
P.S. Yes, I sought permission before taking any of the above. If I just took whatever I saw, I'd have even more stuff.
#37
James Franco’s handwritten poetry.Franco was getting his MFA at my school, where I did work-study on the garbage/recycling crew. Lots of great and hilarious finds, but that’s the most memorable.
#38
My dad used to do the cleaning for a mall and he would bring us some amazing stuff sometimes. I remember he once came back home with a backpack full of miniature toys (like the ones you find in Kinder Surprise), another time an entire toy kitchen, and some kids magazines (Les p'tites princesses, I loved it). He also found a lot of stuff for our home but I was a kid so I remember the toys more than anything#39
I worked as an IT guy for a school district and one time we had to dump a bunch of outdated electronics.Among the actual trash was a still working, perfect condition Mactintosh 128K; the original Apple computer released in 1984. We weren’t allowed to take it, but I went back after my shift to look through the dumpster, but the trash had already been taken to the dump.
Heart breaking
#40
When I was growing up, my neighbour worked at the local council. One night he knocked on the door trying to rehome a couple of kittens that one of the workers had (apparently) found at the local tip. All I remember was this absolute GIANT of a man, normally the most calm and chill person I'd ever met, absolutely seething with anger while holding a tiny ginger-and-white kitten in one of his hands. (My guess is that someone had dropped off a box with them in hoping it wouldn't be noticed, which somehow seems like more of a d*** move -- and more effort -- than just leaving them somewhere public where they might be found by someone, even if you don't want to take them to a shelter.)Anyway, as much as I begged and pleaded I wasn't allowed to keep one because my Dad claimed allergies. No trash-kitty for me.
#41
We have a good friend who garbage picks. He has done so for quite awhile now as a hobby. For years he was the “ski Fairy”. We have 4 kids and they ran through kid skis, boards, poles, boots, masks, like crazy as all kids do as they grow. He and his wife and son all skied, and he would pick up good stuff when he saw it on his rounds. Every so often we would pull into the drive and leaning against the garage would be skis or boots or other equipment that he thought might work for one or more of the kids. The ski fairy had made a delivery.He has found lots of nice things and more valuable stuff, but still my favorite story is his finding money. Change. Not like $6 in a drawer or box. Buckets of it. $780 or so. Not mistakenly thrown out. Placed with garbage. And, $780 in change is heavy. No mistake it was being tossed. I guess not worth counting.
#42
My uncle was (still is?) a garbage man and found a fully boxed Power Rangers Megazord toy. I don't remember which season or what but it had been previously opened and all of the parts and such were still inside.I don't remember if they sold it off or what but it was super cool to see.
A part of me feels like maybe a collector tossed their boxes away and mistakenly threw the whole figure with it or some kid's parents ditched it while cleaning up after a birthday or Christmas. I don't know but feelsbad.
#43
I'm not a garbage person, but over 90% of my apartment is thanks to roadside picks. My tv is my best find, the only thing I can find that's wrong with it is the top left corner shelling/covering has a small piece missing on it; I put some duct tape on it, but it works perfectly and was even tossed out with the remote.#44
Not a garbage specialist, but my buddy ran maintenance at the local land fill, which is located along an extremely busy highway. One of their duties was to cleanup the shoulder of the highway a mile in either direction of the main driveway each day.Cash. Money. He would find cash most days on the side of the road. People driving with their windows down and the dollar bills would fly out the window. Sometimes 5 bucks or other times he would pickup as much as 50 to 85 dollars. Although he said it was more lower amounts commonly with the higher dollars being every once and a while.
#45
Kind of out of the trash... When people drop off their stuff at the municipal recycling center, they sort out stuff that still looks good and sell it for cheap at a sort-of thrift shop.That's how I got my Gaggia Paros coffee machine for 8,- Euros. After thorough cleaning and getting new parts for another 50,- EUR it was good to go. If you buy them used they go for around 200,- EUR. Something comparable costs new about 600,- EUR.
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