Hard Rubbish - Huge Savings While Helping The Environment

I have been focusing on the hard rubbish this year, spurred on by my children's interest. I have managed to get a huge amount of useful stuff for nothing. Here is a list of some of the things I have found:

Large wooden dining room table plus chairs- needs a quick sanding but good otherwise
Gas bbq with 4 burners and nice wood inlaid stand vgc - working
Table outdoor gas heater - working
Stand alone outdoor gas heater - working
2 x empty gas 9kg gas tanks which I exchanges at swap and go
Bicycle with front and back suspension for 11yo, added new seat from another bike, replaced bent back wheel with wheel from another bike.
2 x electric children's scooters - I think only need to charge battery
Quad bike which needs a battery but according to previous owner was working fine before put in storage
42" flat screen plasma TV
Small portable traveling fridge (mains/12v)
2 x air compressors - I hope to get 1 working out of the pair
Planing machine - unknown but suspect will work
Missed out on a working freezer because it wouldn't fit in my car

These are al things I was considering buying hen finances permitted.

What are other people finding and what is your attitude to the whole phenomena?
How do you feel about the commercial people who go around and rip out the motors etc leaving behind useless hardware?

Comments

  • +1

    Love hard rubbish hunting. Though I do it for the vintage computers and hifi stuff.

    Once found a crappy turntable with an $800 tonearm (Micro Seiki). Felt bad and knocked on the door and asked if it was ok to take it because it was worth a bit, the owner gave me another turntable instead that he was going to throw out (Technics SL-1200 MKII!)

  • I was given a working laptop HDD (250gb 7200RPM Toshiba), some old RAM kits, and a E-ATX server motherboard with two sockets that I never manage to work out where it came from or how to use it, since it's form factor is pretty odd.

    And recently picked up a fully working Sony Hifi system with bluetooth and NFC.

  • I love council clean up, but I find it releases my inner hoarder.
    I won't pick up a table that needs sanding or compressors that need repair, as they will just join the many, many other things on my to-do list.
    So it breaks my heart to leave the free bargains sitting there, but these days I just keep going.
    Maybe one day when I have plenty of free time I wills tart collecting stuff again, but in the mean time I console myself that I have left something for the next person.

  • hard rubbish collection - i love it.

    unfortunately where I live now they don't do them as the council allows people to take their stuff to the tip for free.

    when I lived in Albury I scored (amongst other things) a 1920's Japanese buoy. heavy 65cm glass ball with complete and clean roping.

  • +1

    The table can be used with a table cloth and that is what I will do for now. Sanding it shouldn't take much time or effort. With the compressors, I will try to sort them out soon so if I can't fairly easily get something that works, I will put them on my hard rubbish for someone else to have a go :).

    I also found a really nice bathroom sink which I would estimate to be a few hundred dollars. This will come in useful when I redo my bathroom soon. I have tried to not gather things I won't use.

    I do wish more people would put working labels on things so that I know it is worth taking. If I don't know something is working, I generlly assume it is not working but that is probably not the case most of the time.

    • almost tempting to drive around with a small generator in the boot or trailer.

      • I am tempted to do that too. I think I could even use a car/truck battery and transformer. Only need to confirm that it works in a basic sense. If it has an intermittent issue, I can just put it in my hard rubbish. Mainly weed out the really dead stuff.

    • +1

      I once put out something electrical, then got a knock at the door by someone who asked if it worked. After saying it worked he said "plug it in and show me". I declined.

      • +2

        Lol, maybe he wants a warranty with it too…

  • I love it, whereas the other half finds its gross.
    I found an outdoor dining set and a computer desk.

    Does anyone have any tips?
    I know of someone who checks out the more affluent suburbs verge collections.

    42" flat screen plasma TV

    does it work?

    • I haven't had a chance to check but no reason to doubt since it was marked as working and the guy was in his garden so I confirmed with him. I'll check tonight and post the results.

      Lots of really nice garden tables an chairs out there. Saw some with cushions that looked almost new. Would get one but recently got one.

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