One Step Closer to Dumpster-Diving

I've read about the folks in Buffalo who are trying to live on other people's throw-aways. They claim they can get most of what they need to survive by "dumpster-diving" or scavenging through other's garbage.  I even have a couple young relatives who have tried this new urban sport.

Now there aren't a lot of dumpsters out here in small town America, but there is a well established practice called "garbage picking".  Tuesday morning is garbage pick-up day around here, and sometimes people go around late Monday evening, or very early Tuesday morning picking out select pieces of other folk's garbage.  Why not?  It keeps it out of the landfill, and if someone can reuse it, I say good for them.

I think of myself as frugal, but I have never been a "dumpster-diver" or a "garbage picker".  However, I've been walking my neighborhood every morning all summer for exercise, and I can't help but notice that many of my neighbors are now throwing away their plant pots.  I'm not sure why, but maybe they feel the season is over, and they don't want to store them over the winter.  I've resisted several times, all the while thinking, "What a waste."  Well, this Tuesday I could resist no more, and so I joined the ranks of the "garbage pickers".  I came home from my walk with 2 large plastic planting pots and a cute Halloween tin. 

My Halloween "Garbage Pick"

I bought a $2.50 mum and some tiny pumpkin gourds, and just like that I've got a Halloween  pot.  I'll leave it out front for a week or so, and then it's off to my mother-in-law at the nursing home.  (I won't tell her it's someone else's garbage.)