Skip Diving

[DHutch]

The guys doing the school refit called me "Skippy".

We have the same name for master joe fuller!

[Smelly]

4 bin bags full of just in date cream cakes.

 

It's a travesty what's skipped and a greater one that certain chains took to pouring bleach into them to discourage people from dipping.

[twocvbloke]

Hmm, let's see:

 

Disco lighting kit with 8 lights and sequencer, just needed a new fuse in the sequencer unit

21" Ferguson TV, needed the flyback transformer re-soldering, tuner never worked, but using SCART it worked perfect for 5 years until the mother's barsteward ex threw it out without asking me

2x Hoover Juniors, one of which is for sale

a working vintage top-loading Ferguson VHS recorder

A pile of old school (no, not "old-skool" ya twit!!!) computers, mostly 386 and 486 based, all worked fine

 

and cables, motors, bits and pieces and other random stuff that takes my fancy...

 

I love salvaging these things, but it's a PITA that what I see as reusing and recycling is considered as theft by some...

[Natalie Graham]

 

Mrs T writes:

 

Ladies of the parish, had you seen (or smelled) this monstrosity then you would either have sued for divorce or as in my case, made it a condition of a pre nuptual agreement that it saw the local tip.

Mrs T

 

 

That's not a very nice thing to say about her husband.

 

 

 

[Guest wanted]

4 bin bags full of just in date cream cakes.

 

It's a travesty what's skipped and a greater one that certain chains took to pouring bleach into them to discourage people from dipping.

 

agreed, this country seems to be the worst, most supermarket skips are locked these days, In most of france we did alright, ate well most days and in spain we lived like kings! My only advice would be to leave off of the prawns!

[RLWP]

4 bin bags full of just in date cream cakes.

<snip>

 

I'm incredibly green with envy

[carlt]

I'm incredibly green with envy

A Budgens I know, skip their food very carefully, so it isn't damaged, for the skip divers.

[gbmud]

I saw a chap interviewed on the telly about skip-diving for food; he was described as a 'freegan', which I liked.

 

Chris

[martyn 1]

Well my skip diving best would have to be a pair of Steyr 256 marine diesel engines complete with gearboxes.

 

And the icing on the cake was that there was nothing wrong with either of them :0).

[Doorman]

During my teenage years, I lived quite close to Burtonwood Airbase near Warrington in Cheshire. It was still being used as an American airbase where yankie servicemen would be posted for limited periods. When their term was up, they'd simply dump all of their electrical posessions on a tip, close to the base. The TV's and 'walk in' fridges were remarkable compared to our basic appliances, and all free to collect by their poor relations, the brits.

[Doorman]

Help! my lap top keeps duplicating my posts!

Edited September 4, 2010 by Doorman

[Guest wanted]

Heads up! Fire wood in 'skip' next to the London apprentice, Isleworth. Yesterday

 

 

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

click to enlarge

[Doorman]

Not quite a skip find but on another occasion some tinkers took over another neighbouring site and when they left there was the usual debris tipped on the car park. We noticed a lot of block paviers - used ones - someone had replaced a block paved drive I think. We managed to get a load on a 7½ ton truck before dawn - the council were likely to clear the site the next day. A load of sand, hire a whacker plate and a block splitter and we had a lovely block paved drive for very little money at all!

 

 

That reminds me of when I used to provide my services to an independent DIY wharehouse in Aintree, Liverpool. A group of Tinkers set up site adjacent to the massive store and broke into the open air, but well protected storage depot to the rear of the premises. They promptly helped themselves to a large amount of patio chairs and tables, complete with parasols. The following day, I was contacted to investigate how someone had raised the extremely heavy metal gates that protected the area, off the hinge pins and then made off with the garden accessories.

 

One look over the 2.7 metre fencing revealed the answer. The tinkers were all sat outside of their caravans, drinking pimms and martinis whilst relaxing on their newley acquired furniture. What a cheek!

 

It transpired from the cctv coverage, that on the previous night, the buggers had scaled the fence and used the company's own fork lift truck to lift the gates free of their hinges. The owner never bothered to call the police, he simply sent in some local 'advisors' who liaised with the travellers in a very amiable way. You could see the tyre dust for miles along the East Lancashire road.

 

Well my skip diving best would have to be a pair of Steyr 256 marine diesel engines complete with gearboxes.

 

And the icing on the cake was that there was nothing wrong with either of them :0).

 

 

I wondered where I'd left them!

[Tim Lewis]

During my teenage years, I lived quite close to Burtonwood Airbase near Warrington in Cheshire. It was still being used as an American airbase where yankie servicemen would be posted for limited periods. When their term was up, they'd simply dump all of their electrical posessions on a tip, close to the base. The TV's and 'walk in' fridges were remarkable compared to our basic appliances, and all free to collect by their poor relations, the brits.

 

Wouldn't it have been 110v?

 

Tim

[MoominPapa]

Wouldn't it have been 110v?

They probably skipped the transformers necessary to run the appliances on 240v too.

 

MP.

[OldGoldy]

Wouldn't it have been 110v?

 

Tim

AIUI from a WWII US vet (20yrs ago) - a lot of American appliances ARE/WERE 220V, but I don't remember which.

 

US TVs however would not have worked in this country unless the base supplied them a satellite link. Discarded US TVs are no good to us Brits.

 

and from Wiki:- "Standardized at 120 V. Electricity suppliers aim to keep most customers supplied between 114 and 126 V most of the time. 240 V/60 Hz used for heavy duty applications such as air conditioners, clothes dryers, stoves, ovens, and water heaters. Buildings with more than one branch circuit will have both 120 and 240 V available"

[gbmud]

Assuming the 'mercans were returning to the land of 110v and NTSC, I guessed they were ditching 220v/PAL European spec kit which would not work in 'merca?

 

Chris

[magpie patrick]

out of a skip

 

the office chair at home, the "windlass box" (an old cool box) on the boat

 

from a scrappy

 

200m old coal canal tramway plate... (No I'm not telling where we store it)

 

I also have four nineteenth century beer bottles from a canal restoration dredging...

 

and as I kid I remember Dad turning up at Reddish North Station, slipping the booking clerk a pound, and driving off with the enamel sign, burgundy and cream "Reddish North"...

[Doorman]

Hmm, let's see:

 

Disco lighting kit with 8 lights and sequencer, just needed a new fuse in the sequencer unit

21" Ferguson TV, needed the flyback transformer re-soldering, tuner never worked, but using SCART it worked perfect for 5 years until the mother's barsteward ex threw it out without asking me

2x Hoover Juniors, one of which is for sale

a working vintage top-loading Ferguson VHS recorder

A pile of old school (no, not "old-skool" ya twit!!!) computers, mostly 386 and 486 based, all worked fine

 

and cables, motors, bits and pieces and other random stuff that takes my fancy...

 

I love salvaging these things, but it's a PITA that what I see as reusing and recycling is considered as theft by some...

 

 

It's hardly theft when otherwise it may only end up on some barren waste field in India, polluting and endangering the local population.

 

There was a council employee who earned a small fortune at our local tip. He used to salvage computers etc., and send them over to Africa where they'd be recycled, once all of the private data had been extracted from the hard drives and sold on!

[Doorman]

Wouldn't it have been 110v?

 

Tim

 

 

No Tim, the servicemen resided in neat but cloned bungalows within the grounds of the base. As far as I know, they were linked to the local grid network without reducing the standard 230/240v output. They may have had a reducing transformer in each bungalow though. Whatever the voltage, it never stopped them from from indulging in their nocternal swinging parties, or, for that matter, deterred the brits from salvaging their cast-offs.

 

When my parents migrated me to the the area from darkest Liverpool, I was amazed at how many of my new school mates were named Karl, Wayne etc.,

totally alien to a kid who's previous mates names were limited to Jimmy or Tommy. The American influence had certainly left its mark there!

 

Duane (Mike really)

[Doorman]

I remember when I used to do business with a security shutter company in Cheshire, who would skip surplus shutter material even though it could be easily re-worked. I was given permission by the manager, to sift through the contents of the skip at my pleasure. This I promptly did, with the aid of my teenage son during one week-end when the company was closed for the day.

 

After hours of filtering through the decent sections, a police car came whizzing around the corner with the 'nick nick' lights flashing in anticipation. Both my son and I were knee deep at this point in the skip. The officers believed (apparently from a tip-off), that we were gypsies looking for scrap booty. It was only after I showed one of the officers my mobile phone contact list, with the managers number listed, did he eventually let go of my collar and release me.

 

I hasten to add, it was the last time that we took up the offer of such a good thing!

 

It doesn't help that I have a complexion similar to that of an Irish tinker, I only wish I had his money!

 

Mike