Make Money with Dumpster Diving and the Law of Thrift

Some dumpsters would require PPE, don't you think?

I just read a wonderful article in Wired, which you can find here.  It's about a guy who has been driving around Austin, dumpster diving.  And he finds all sorts of brand new items!  He started dumpster diving as part of his job as a security consultant (to show where a company had vulnerabilities with information leakage).  He is picky as far as which dumpsters he goes to.  Probably not restaurant dumpsters...  Definitely dumpsters at Best Buy, Harbor Freight, and the like.  Many times, he finds brand new items, discarded by employees.

Is this something we would have seen fifty years ago?  Our culture now is so fixated on everything being disposable, and the need to consume new things and newer things.  Planned obsolescence.  There is an interesting quote:

"Prosperity was becoming a kind of secular religion, and its visionary torchbearer was J. Gordon Lippincott. Today, Lippincott is remembered mainly as the father of corporate branding, the engineer-cum-marketer who created the Campbell’s Soup label and the Coca-Cola logo. He was also, however, the high priest of planned obsolescence. 'Our willingness to part with something before it is completely worn out is a phenomenon noticeable in no other society in history,' he wrote. The phenomenon 'is soundly based on our economy of abundance. It must be further nurtured even though it is contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity—the law of thrift.'"

Woah.

That just blew my mind.

One of the things that bothers me the most about modern technology is also one of the things I like best.  We have these tiny computers we carry around, that can make calls, surf the internet, set alarms, and even map where I hike via GPS.  This smartphone did not come cheap.  Yet one drop off the kitchen counter and the screen is smashed to smithereens.  One year later and the model is obsolete because of a new version.  Time to dispose of--not repair--the phone.

Yet in this culture where we love to throw away things (and someone else can deal with it, magically), people are throwing away brand-new items that the gentleman profiled in the article above can re-sell.  If there is a need for an item, why is it being tossed?

I love capitalism (YAY CAPITALISM!).  But, as you can see by Lippincott's quote, and I do agree with him--consumerism, and planned obsolescence, is in fact contrary to one of the oldest inbred laws of humanity--the law of thrift.

Let's return to the law of thrift!

For all the new trends that arise--wanting to get back to "natural" parenting because that's the way it has been done for thousands of years, for instance...  Let's make returning to our natural law of thrift a priority as well!

As I have been saying for several posts now, reduce, reuse, recycle...  In all aspects of your home.  Maybe one day, dumpsters will have a service involved that strives to actually keep items out of landfills, and not rely on Freecycle or dumpster divers.  Sure, grassroots is great--but perhaps if anti-waste legislation was implemented, we would see our landfills be less, um, filled.

And, as for planned obsolescence:  Let's overcome it.  I see it in fashion all the time.  Those skinny jeans are SO five seasons ago.  Please try wide leg.  Please try flare.  Oh wait, those flares are SO three seasons ago.  Please try skinny.  And so on.  Less waste and more thrift is what we need to return to.  We can have technology without waste; I know it is possible.