How to do a Recycle Walk/Dumpster Diving??

[sydnurbin]

Hi, I was wondering, how do you do a recycle walk? We have our garbage day on thursday, so do I got out later at night and just go through people's recycle bins? And we also have a couple paper recycling dumpsters, and I wanted to try diving in that. Is it worth it? Also the smart source came out this week, so there should be a bunch of those! Does anybody have any tips or expertise on this?

[BuggaBugga]

First, make sure it's not illegal in your municipality. I go in the day sometime between when most people leave for work and the truck comes, which for me is 9-11 am. It's less suspicious looking and you are able to see better. But if your truck is coming at 7 am or something ridonk I would go at like 5 or 6 am. Know what you are looking for- know what the coupons look like and what paper they came out of so you can grab them quickly and easily. Only spend a few seconds in each bin, like 30 or less. Once you get efficient at it you will be able to look through a lot of bins quickly. Bring something to put your treasures in, and maybe a pocket size purell or wet ones just in case you touch something icky. Some might suggest gloves but I find it too hard to get a grip on papers. If you get confronted by a home owner or who ever, honesty is the best policy. Just tell them you are looking for extra copies of this weeks coupon inserts and would they mind if you had a quick look. They might tell you to scram, but that's ok. Just move on. I think it's worth it if the coupon insert was decent that week. I would go this week for sure. I don't know much about dumpster diving as we don't have them here, but when I first started coupons I would go in a community recycle bin where the newspaper deliverers would send their surplus (including extra door hangers- Woohoo!) and the lid fell and hit me on the head. Luckily it was only wood but still watch out for falling lids lol.