Found in the trash: Furniture, free money, and fuel

Dekalb and I went downtown again to harvest ‘garbage‘ today – one of our favorite ways to save money and recycle at the same time. Here’s the first spot we hit:

A lot of this furniture was in good condition even after being thrown into a dumpster, but neither of us needed any so we left it there. Both of our places are well-furnished, thanks in part to previous years’ garbage gleanings. I hope someone who could use it found it. (I should note that it is also illegal to go into a dumpster without the property owner’s permission, at least in the United States. I’ve blurred the edges of the above photo to protect the property owner’s privacy.)

We moved on to other areas. We found lots of clothes to clean and donate, charcoal and lighter fluid, about a bazillion Swiffer refills and detergent pods for my dishwasher, a waterproof mp3 player (you know, so you can listen to music while you swim —I didn’t even know there was a need for that) and boxes full of pantry items that the owners had never gotten around to opening. I also found money:

It wasn’t anywhere near the $60 in cash we found in the pocket of hot-pink short-shorts one year, but it’s nice anyway.

We also got a lot of coffee, including a pound of vacuum-packed fair-trade coffee, four-packs of canned Starbucks coffee, and a hundred or so K-cups – even flavored decaf, which Mindy Celeste tells me is hard to find in box-and-mortar stores. (I have to trust her on that one since I’ve never looked for them. I have a reusable filter for my Keurig brewer that I fill with bagged coffee.)

This isn’t even a dent in all the stuff we gleaned in our 5 hours of gleaning. I have a living room full of bags left to sort through, but this is what I can say for sure: I won’t be buying detergent or coffee anytime soon.