The other day, my friend texted me a picture of about 15 boxes of Krispy Kreme dozens in the back of her family van. Her caption was “Kyle (her teenage son) just dumpster dove behind Krispy Kreme with his friends. OMG.”
The Krazy Coupon Lady’s co-founder Joanie famously dumpster dove (in a paper-only recycling bin) in the past to get extra coupons from newspaper circulars. So after the donut text, I was curious whether dumpster diving was a thing. I headed to Reddit and social media to find out.
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1. Bath & Body Works dumpster divers have found candles and partly used items.
Dumpster dive college dorms for textbooks at the end of the semester.
Dave Sheffeild of Love in the Dumpster started dumpster diving in college to help make ends meet. He found his biggest haul ever by checking the dumpsters outside the dorms at the end of the semester. There were $1,500 worth of textbooks in there! He filled up his truck and flipped them, making his broke college days a little less broke.
TIP: If you don’t want to dumpster dive, here are 33 other ways to get free textbooks.
Secure massive hauls at business parks.
Another great place to look for massive dumpster dive hauls? Business parks — particularly business parks that include warehouses.
“When they decide a product isn’t going to work for them, it can be like three pallets that they’re going to throw out,” Dave says.
Hunt for raw materials at industrial retail parks.
If you’re dumpster diving as a side hustle, you might want to target industrial retail parks even above warehouse parks. That’s because the raw materials they throw away — whether that be sheet metal, granite, or anything else — can often be flipped for a hearty profit fairly easily.
Just keep in mind that these places are more likely to have their own recycling-for-profit programs, so you’ll want to check before you take anything out of their dumpsters in particular.
