We’ve been blessed with mostly good weather this past week so I went on a bunch of extra trash runs. Garbage picking is a lot more fun when it’s not raining, and this post features some finds I made while putting in extra time.
It also helps that I’ve been on a bit of a hot streak lately. It seems that I’m finding something cool every time I go out! It’s hard to keep up with the extra accumulation, and my new garage is already loaded with (quality) junk. Still, I’m happy to be finding lots of neat stuff.
I think I’ll do a yard sale tomorrow in hopes of opening up some space for new garbage. It’ll be at my old storage (4096 Coloniale near Duluth), around 12-5pm if you want to come by. If there’s anything specific you want to see let me know in the comments or by facebook / email and I can tell you if the thing is still around or if I can bring it.
I was pretty busy on Tuesday. I went on a trash run the night before and then I did another one in the morning with a friend. We went to Villeray, which is the closest and most convenient Tuesday morning destination, though it’s pretty hit and miss in regards to actually finding anything. Thankfully, a place on Lajeunesse produced some quality stuff including this sweet vintage “Spartan” sled. I’m surprised no one grabbed this before I did! It’s a great decor item, but could be good to use as well.
We also found a box full of vintage metal bits, a lot of which date to the early 1900s. I’m not sure what most of them are supposed to do, I’m guessing they’re decorative pieces. There’s a bunch of nice vintage clothes hooks, as well as some fence post toppers / finials (like the ones at top right and top left – I have several more that aren’t pictured). The fleur-de-lys is well represented here. I expect this stuff can make me a bit of money, I just have to figure out how to describe it. If you can think of any relevant keywords let me know!
Sorry this picture turned out a bit weird, I’m still learning how to take good photos at my new garage space.
That pile provided some more hardware, including some vintage switches, old-school water faucets, and drawer pulls. I have to figure out if there’s a market for any of this stuff. The wooden thing looks to be a handmade noisemaker toy.
We also saved some furniture from that spot, but I’ll save that for a future post.
I learned while looking up garbage schedules in the morning that there was a Tuesday evening pickup in Rosemont. I decided to check that out as well, though I had some regrets as soon as I got there. I do love trash picking, but it loses its luster if you do it too often. At that point I’d already gone on two roughly 3-4 hour runs in the last 20 hours or so. Regardless, I kept going because I was already there, and I was interested in exploring this area I hadn’t traveled to in a while. Thankfully, some trash in front of a sold house made the trip worthwhile.
Inside the bags was a collection of beauty products, most notably some quality perfumes. Most were barely used and all the bottles were in very nice condition. The Paloma Picasso and Cartier have already been reserved, but if you have interest in any of the others let me know.
A different Rosemont run (Rosemont is quite large) produced an old Elgin self-winding watch. It had been stored inside an old pill bottle and seems to run very well, though the watch band is in pieces. Regardless, it’s a quality watch done in rolled gold and it should net me around 70-80$. We also found a neat enamel-top table that should fix up nicely – I’ll show you pics of that later.
Otherwise, I happened upon another great pile of trash thanks to the location of my new garage. I probably wouldn’t have been in the area if not for that. Anyways, the first time around it produced some neat old junk including some old and sometimes offensive Made in Japan figurines. One of the old colonial pieces is stamped “Made in Occupied Japan,” meaning that it was made sometime between 1947 and 1952. The others were probably made not long after.
I saved a lot more great stuff at this spot last garbage day. I haven’t even really had time to look through it all, but I’ll share it with you as soon as humanly possible.
Let’s finish up with some e-waste. I’ve been collecting it as usual, and last week I deposited a collection (mostly old cell phones, portable phones without their bases, and decrepit digital cameras) weighing 3.185kg. I’ve diverted 4.3kg of e-waste from the landfill since I started recording this data in the spring.
I bring it all (except the loose batteries, which go to container at the pharmacy) to a box run by Electrobac. It’s conveniently located at a grocery store just down the road. These boxes are thankfully becoming more common (at least in Montreal), and I encourage you to use them to recycle your small e-waste!
Relevant links
1. Facebook page
2. My eBay listings
3. Etsy store
4. Kijiji listings
5. Contribute to garbagefinds.com
6. Follow me on Instagram
Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com. I often fall behind on emails, so I apologize in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you.