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I happened to pass by a local college here and i noticed a STACKED dumpster loaded with everything scrap from microwaves, tables, chairs, lamps, and 4x futon frames. Whenever the students finish or graduate, they must dump all their stuff off and then go. I wanted to share this because its nice to check on these spots. How do you do in college spots?
Absolutly benny!
Psu is 15 min to the south of me and after graduation anything and everything gets tossed out. Onetip i put on here somewhere is to park between the entrance of dorms or housing and the dumpsters and put some signage or tell the kids hauling out their junk that they can drop it off right here. It is unbelievable how fast you can fill up a truck and trailer on the last day of school. Make sure if you try this to make sure its ok with the campus FIRST. Do not want to mess up this motherload. Then when night rolls in hit the dumpsters for all the goodies that got by during the day. Most items i get are pretty beat up and do not have much resale but usually find a few gems in the mix.
Dealing with the college crowd can be fun when they are all happy they graduated most are in great moods or extremly hungover lol
I've always thought this would be lucrative scrapping opportunity. I've got two smaller colleges near me, I'll see if I can do this. One mans trash is another mans treasure!
Ive done several college "Move out" days They are a Scrapper's dream. The stuff they throw out is ridiculous! They just don't feel like moving it. From decent furniture to working electronic appliances of all shapes and sizes. Any trash night in a college town will yield you a decent score but move out days are king! Make friends with the Security guards... buy them coffee...let them see your face. Maybe get ahead of the others.
My son just finished his first year at GVSU. I went and helped him move out of the dorms, bringing my big enclosed trailer, fully expecting to load up on the furniture, fridges, etc. that I saw last time. There was a lot of it. they had signs everywhere saying it was illegal to take any of the stuff the kids toss out. no dumpster diving, etc. said we would be prosecuted...I was totally bummed...
when I was in college, I used to take stuff all the time. I would even pull textbooks out of the trash kids would toss because it was too much work to stand in line for the buyback...times have sure changed.
At a collage near me, there is a program on campus where a school organization collects all the old stuff at the end of the year and does a yard sale type at the beginning of the next year. Good, these thing are being reused and not just trashed. Bad, it doesn't involve me.
Also elementary schools. All the chairs I ever sat on and tables are normally a steel pipe construction with a wooden plate on it, and they get thrown out eventually.
have always lived near colleges and the old days are fading fast. the colleges themselves are all starting to jump on the band wagon now. but they can only control the on campus housing. start advertising on campus and CL about a month before school lets out you can score big from just off campus housing. Also get with some of the owners of off campus housing and they will let you clean out the houses some might even give you a few $$ to do it. if they remove fridges and if kids leave lots of heavy stuff behind. have cleaned out off campus housing where they left everything took only personal belongings. you can get some cool and some weird stuff. you also get to learn about the college life kids lead.
Hopefully when I finally get my first vehicle, it'll have enough room for this. Michigan State University is a half hour from me and they ALWAYS get rid of their beds and stuff there. Scrappers are always seen there.
those wee scrap drop off bins that are all over Europe inside the buildings would be a sweet gig. weekly routes empty the lock boxes....money in the bank
replying to myself, ha ha...can't believe it's been that long.Quote:
Originally Posted by gungatim
son is a Junior now, and lives in off-campus apartments. Off campus they DO allow you to take stuff from the trash. so campus is off-limits but all the Apartments up and down the area are up for grabs. When moving him in I saw so much stuff I was drooling. coupla laptops, stereo, speakers, lots of furniture, and a couple small fridges. I grabbed what I could but in the Spring I'll be back with my trailer!
I went to Boston to move my daughter from one apartment to a new one on September 1st. Well, September 1st IS moving day in Boston and I've never seen anything like it before.
We were on the streets at 8 am and it was chaos everywhere already. There was furniture, vacuum cleaners, microwaves etc on every curb , on every block. The curb shoppers were out, the scrappers were out there...
I was tempted to do a little "shopping" of my own but I had to keep focused on the task at hand.
Anyway Benny is right on- colleges and Universities that have residence halls can be a gold mine if you get the connections and permission to go there. The students also throw out computers, TVs, and all sorts of electronics along with
clothes and furniture they don't want to bother bringing home. I am working on getting to put my electronics recycling rig on campus so that they can just toss what they don't want in there. Saves me the diving part.
I just don't want to deal with all the CRT TVS that seem to find there way in there still every year.