Kerbside skip browsing - have you? Would you?

Juliet27

Also nanna8 I’ve noticed when I’ve been there that in Australia, people keep their unwanted stuff outside their house so whoever wants it they can take it. Does that apply to most towns?

In Perth they have a set number of days a year when everybody can put out anything they don’t want on the kerbside in front of their house, people go round on that day and take what they want. The next day there’s a municipal collection, and what people haven’t taken all gets collected and taken to the tip. It works really well.

I got some greenhouse staging which had been put out with the recycling bin, knocked on the door and she was really happy for me to take home and use in my greenhouse.

Yes, pulled a beautiful old bike out of a skip in Gothenburg when I lived there, brought it back with me and used it for years until I passed it on to a collector.

Yes - but check with householder that it is OK to take the item you have your eye on - had a mirror a few years ago - owner was doing up and the style of it just no longer fitted them.

Here in Perth, we have kerbside collections at certain times throughout the year. You put out what you don’t want - furniture, bikes etc., if someone wants it, take it, if it’s not gone by time council collection comes round they take it and it goes into their recycled “shop” on the tip site. Love going there, you never know what you might find 😊

Presumably it's not illegal if the skip is parked on the public highway as it's available to anyone and no longer has an 'owner'?
However, skips left on drives are a different ball game, I would imagine. Taken without permission would be 'theft'?

Juliet27

Also nanna8 I’ve noticed when I’ve been there that in Australia, people keep their unwanted stuff outside their house so whoever wants it they can take it. Does that apply to most towns?

I've put plants on the kerb side in the UK
They disappear quite quickly.

mumofmadboys

It seems so stupid that it is illegal to take something from a skip.

Especially as much of it may end up in landfill!

FannyCornforth

I've found some great stuff in skips or left outside. I always knock and ask first, of course. I put my unwanted items on the drive for others to take.

I 'rescued' a very strong wicker laundry basket from a house across the road, lined it with an old garden bag - and turned it into a planter for a red maple. The lady came over and said 'It looks so lovely, I do wish I'd thought of that!'

We put unwanted metal objects out for collection by a “scrappie” here. I put two metal garden obelisks out the other day and someone knocked on the door and asked if he could have them. I was glad to see them go, whatever way.

Years ago we were converting a Victorian house that had been flats, back to one house. Similar houses in the road were being converted to flats. We put back most of the original features by rescuing them from skips in the road.

Certainly does in Melbourne, not sure of others.

Also nanna8 I’ve noticed when I’ve been there that in Australia, people keep their unwanted stuff outside their house so whoever wants it they can take it. Does that apply to most towns?

People do it all the time here- different rules, different countries

Meryl what an interesting and pretty garden.

I used to work in Belgravia - one day a colleague came back from lunch lugging a Persian carpet she had retrieved from a skip!

It seems so stupid that it is illegal to take something from a skip.

Yes. We had loads of stuff from dumpsters in America - where, incidentally, it was deemed legal on public land in (I think) 1988. We were there earlier than that however. It's not if on private land or if locked of course.

We had friends who rescued unbelievable items in the 1960s onwards such as whole virtually new hi-fi systems from dumpsters at the end of each academic year as students didn't want to ship them back home. At end of each year they regularly had brand new items still in boxes, clothing (sometimes with the receipts) still in the store carrier bags, furniture items (whole dining table sets) and particularly desks and swivel type office chairs.
It was quite outrageous how much was simply dumped.

It was the same after Christmas. I visited one day near new year and they had dozens of unopened Christmas gifts on their verandah which had come from dumpsters and a virtually new children's climbing frame.
Anything they couldn't find a use for went to the thrift store.

Here in the UK recently we built a new rainwater soak-away and had all the rubble from a skip (with permission).

Of course someone else’s rubbish can be your recycled project and if they don’t want it why shouldn’t someone else make use if it Just makes sense doesn’t it ?
Anything here not wanted we put outside the back gate near the bins (not for the bin men just a message that it’s rubbish) and it’s usually gone by the next day The best one was when we put some kitchen pipes outside and later in the day an old boy knocked on my door and asked if I d got the brackets that went with them 😂
I ve found things for my garden I like a bit of someones else’s rubbish you can be really inventive with it

When I was a student a boyfriend got me a spotless one of these out of a skip.
They fetch a fortune now.
He was an absolutely useless so and so, it was definitely the best thing he accomplished

Callistemon21

What is more annoying is finding things in your skip that you didn't put in there.

Absolutely

It’d take a very special sort of person surely to object to someone making use of something they’d actually thrown out, let alone want to report the “crime”?

When we lived in Germany you could just put any unwanted items straight out onto the kerbside on the first Saturday of each month. People would take whatever they wanted and then the leftovers would be scooped up by the refuse trucks at midday. We got some great stuff for our flat that way.

We just had two skips outside as we are renovating a guy came and spent along time digging through both of them. Asking permission first good luck to him is our attitude.

My husband does too sodapop. He once collected a very good child's bike from a skip. We repainted it and oiled it and our first two grandchildren had loads of fun on it.
He is out really early in the morning when nobody is about.