The weather hasn’t really been conducive to trash picking lately. On the night I happened across this stuff there was heavy, icy pellet like snow. Since then, there’s been two separate 30-some centimeter dumps, each of which made driving (and parking anywhere) in the city a major pain until they were cleared, and finally another 10cm or so just to top things off.
(Now, as I write this, it’s about -40c out with windchill).
When there’s that much snow, I only go out when I have some interesting spots to check, and I don’t really have any of those right now (other than the book tossers, who will probably be featured in my new post). So, I haven’t been doing much hunting recently, and when I have gone out, I haven’t found much of anything. Well, anything besides the aforementioned books and this haul, which was mostly Alibaba quality vape / marijuana paraphernalia (it’s legal here in Canada, for what it’s worth), which I’m guessing it was once someone’s side hustle.
There were several big boxes stuffed with disposable vapes on the curb. I took three boxes filled with product that was still sealed – the rest looked new, but on closer inspection they had been opened. I figured the unopened product was probably “too good to be true,” but I decided to give them a chance. Indeed, they were all garbage; old and leaky and low-quality from the day they were made (probably why the other ones had been opened, and then thrown out). Back to the curb they went, which is probably for the best because I’m not sure the legality of selling vapes with nicotine anyways.
(It’s hard to think of a product less environmentally friendly than a disposable vape).
I didn’t put a lot of effort into photographing this stuff, because a lot of it was pure crap. Cheap, cheap, cheap… but there is a market for that clearly, such as first year University students with bad taste. Some was alright, like a bunch of light up weed trays with Rick and Morty on them (or whoever, in the white boxes in the third pic). The Nintendo emulator looked new, so that’s a nice find if it works. I also found lots of regular vapes and electronic lighters with dragon motifs and so on, all of which would need to be tested.
More decent stuff here, like a bunch of brand new corn cob pipes, a dozen or so run-of-the-mill glass pipes, and the “glass hookahs” in those little boxes. The pendant grinders are stupid novelty products, but someone will buy them.
One of my better finds was a huge load of grinders, a lot of which were still wrapped in their original plastic with price tags attached. Most came out of the black rolling trash bin.
I saved well over a hundred. Most were decent quality, just the plastic topped ones were notably cheap.
I also found eight unopened packs of rolling papers. These 50-packs appear to sell for around 60 USD new, so that’s a nice get.
Come yard sale season this haul should make me good money. It’s a lot of work organizing this, but thankfully I have someone who can help me with that (and selling as well). I’m happy to give them a good cut of the profits, because I don’t have the time or the interest to do it myself.
So, not my favourite haul obviously, but it’s something different and money is money. I prefer the historical finds though, and I’ll share some of those in my next post.
Links
1. My eBay listings, Sign up for eBay (Canada, US), Search for something you want / research something you have (Canada, US) – FYI these are Ebay Partner Network links, so I make a few bucks if you sign up for an account or buy something after getting to eBay using these links
2. Facebook page
3. Follow @garbagefinds and @garbagefindssells (selling account, operated by someone else) on Instagram
4. Email: thingsifindinthegarbage@gmail.com – note that I can’t fulfill most requests for items, many are already gone by the time they are posted here.