A Redditor decorated much of their house and picked up a number of other great finds by scavenging discarded items over the course of two summers.
The poster in early November shared nine photos, saying they landed a 70-inch flatscreen television, furniture, a Nintendo 3DS, hoverboards, power washers, snowblowers, lawn equipment, "and everything in between."
"Would you believe me if I said I found all these Items being thrown away on trash day in rich neighborhoods?" they wrote. "... It just blows my mind what some people throw away [nowadays]."
Homeowners aren't the only ones discarding such items. Retailers are similarly wasteful, especially clothing shops, which put 92 million tons of textiles into landfills each year, according to Earth.org. That's partly because people wear garments just seven to 10 times before tossing them, helping lead to $500 billion in annual losses.
Returns are another massive issue in the globalized world's waste ecosystem, costing companies $50 billion each year, accounting for 9.6 billion pounds of trash, and producing 27 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution.
"To stay competitive, companies need to stop seeing profitability and sustainability as being at odds," Fast Company reported last year. "That means thinking about reverse logistics the same way they would any other aspect of their supply chain, rather than viewing returns as an inevitable loss, and outsourcing them to third-party processors. Returns need to be a priority, and profitability and sustainability need to be approached as complementary rather than opposing goals."
Grocers are likewise responsible for copious amounts of garbage. As much as 30% of all food produced is wasted, while 783 million people suffer from chronic hunger and 333 million people are food insecure.
Dumpster divers fill a void in the absence of a circular economy, making finds from toys and cleaning products to meats and frozen pizzas.
This poster was particularly successful.
"Bro saved 9k $," one commenter wrote.
Another said: "When ever I see good stuff in the trash I save it just to donate to our local shelter. It pisses me off that people are so lazy and can't be bothered to drive something to people who could use it."
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