An Interview with the Dumpster-Diver
Following are excerpts from an interview with "Punch," a homeless squatter whose expertise in dumpster-diving and scavenging has proven very informative for this project.
...Punch tells me about the time he went dumpstering in Olympia, Washington, with Jimmy Nil. They had been heading up the west coast, presumably with Ian (who they picked up in Berkeley) and someone else. Jimmy was very sick, having come down with a cold so fierce that Punch had given a name.(Incidentally, everyone on the trip eventually got this illness.)
"Jimmy wasn't feeling so well, so I said: 'Well here's a Burger King up here on the left. I'm going to dumpster you some dinner.' There was nothing at the Burger King, but I did manage to score at the Jack-in-the-Box dumpster."
Then Punch is about to say something about Krispy Kreme. I turn on the recorder.
P: Krispy Kreme is a mainstay as far as getting your stomach full, but...downtown...
R: (laughs) I'm sure nutrient content is..lacking at the Krispy Kreme dumpster.
P: Yeah. to be perfectly honest, I'm really not much of a donut person either. So, it's like, Krispy Kreme is where you go when you've exhausted all your other food options and want to fill the empty...Well I'd say I end up there about twice a week.
R: That is the one dumpster I've hit, was the Krispy Kreme. It's not really like a dumpster..It's just like a wooden box.
P: Yeah. Those are the ones that they donate to the jail and Saint Francis house...Let's see..There is Taco Bell..But it takes a lot of courage to go inside and eat Taco Bell when it's fresh.
R: (Laugh.)
P: You know. I don't even want to think about dumpstered Taco Bell.
R: So you'd say you dumpster about once or twice a day?
P: Right.
R: Do you..Where are some of your other..?
P: That was including when I had a steady job.
R: Yeah. Well you were only working three shifts.
P: Yeah.
R: So I'm sure the money that you made you had to spend on surviving?
P: Yeah pretty much. I mean I was making 200 a month. And in this town unless you have a set of willing roommates that's not going to even get you off the street...But ummm...Dumpstering, dumpstering. 55th Street. When I lived out by the mall. That was pretty good dumpster. They had a Burger King, a Long John Silver's -- which was...very rarely did I score from the Long John Silver's, and you have to be exceptionally careful with fish.
R: Yeah. It's one of the healthiest things for you...But if it's sitting in a dumpster, I guess...
P: Well...That's why I love fast-food. You know. It's individually-wrapped. It's clean. Really the only thing that could mess it up is if it sits out for so long that bugs chew into it, or it gets spoiled, or they throw like a drink or a milkshake in the bag and it gets sloshed.
R: So..Do you know the places that probably throw fresh stuff out every day? Are there certain places that always have an overproduction?
P: Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much almost every fast-food place - especially sandwich places have stuff sitting under a heat lamp...uh. Fried chicken places. And at the end of the day or at the end of the shift, or whenever it gets too old by their rules for consumption, then it goes out. And some places vary their timing - specifically to throw off divers. You know other places just do it on a regular schedule, or whenever it's convenient. And if you have your timing down you can get HOT dumpster food.
R: Hot dumpster food. That's very nice.
P: OK. Well what's all out there? Let's see..Long John Silver's. Also is a...sharp eye and a sharp nose helps a lot. Like I said, Burger King, which has been very good to me from coast-to-coast.
R: (Laughs.)
P: Hey. Windover, Utah. Burger King. The best dumpster spot in the world. It's just a little shithole truck-stop town on the Nevada border.....Windover....I don't know if I'd want to live in a town that rhymes with "bend-over."
R: Yeah, I can't say I hit Windover when I went out west.
P: You probably blinked and missed it.
R: We were close to the Nevada border, but we were going around to parks and stuff...
P: What else is out west? In terms of...
R: The Olympia dumpster?
P: No, I'm actually referring to west Gainesville...Yeah. There's a McDonald's, but they have a grinder.
R: A grinder?
P: Yeah. A grinder or a compactor. Those big things...
R: Oh. They destroy the garbage?
P: Pretty much. It's pretty much corporate policy at McDonald's to have a compactor as opposed to a dumpster. So next time you hear one of those great commercials about Ronald McDonald House, and how they care for children, just remember how they're shafting the poor...
R: Actually, I was going to ask you about money acquisition. I remember you were telling me a story - living in Miami... You were collecting parts. Were they electronic parts? And taking them to a dump for money?
P: As far as collecting hardware goes, or collecting whatever, in Gainesville - pretty much this had dried up and it's not really possible anymore - but I used to dumpster a number of computer stores around campus. I was able to sell a couple of the parts that I got. Dumpstered some really nice stuff. Most of it got vaporized by a fascist landlady who threw me out. But not bag and baggage - she kept all my stuff... Yeah, I found Pentium motherboards in the dumpster.
R: And you're able to do something with that? To basically sell it back? Or is it already on its own marketable?
P: It depends. Basically, the best way to build a computer is from parts. That way you're going to get the best deal, and you set up the system the way you want it set up. Of course, for today's point-and-click and scream if you see a "C-prompt" generation...
(Laughter)
P: (mocking) "I've never opened my machine."
R: I'm bad in DOS, too.
P: I was the same way before and you can be the same way if you don't have the access to that sort of thing, but...
R: But..do you not remember what I'm talking about? I might have my facts wrong...
P: As far as Miami goes, the only thing that I really collected and sold was... We didn't even pick up aluminum cans. It's just that me and a roommate of mine at one point in time found an aluminum recycling center outside of town that kept all their cans in an open tractor-trailer in the parking lot. So every day we would go fill up garbage bags and garbage bags and fill his Volvo - packed to the roof with garbage bags of aluminum cans - then the next day sell them at different recycling centers around town.
(Laughter.)
R: Now what would your product be in that case? I guess you could be called a kind of distributor...
P: "We recycle recycled recyclables.."
R: What kind of take would you get on that?
P: Um. Well, first off. Miami is a really shitty town for aluminum. So, it's like, literally... Cause there are so many poor people, and so many people collecting cans and what-not down there. Literally, a full station wagon would only net us 25 or 30 bucks.
R: I think the story would probably be different in... Well you might actually know... In Washington or Oregon? Do they have good return rates on cans?
P: The only state I've ever done a lot of deposits is the only state in America that has 10 cent deposits.
R: Ten cent deposits?
P: Michigan. All bottles and cans of beer, soda, and some miscellaneous drinks. As a matter of fact, I know a person in Michigan who went to prison for two years for breaking into a building to steal their cans. Literally, a ten-cent deposit - you're talking some very serious money. And I know the reason this was implemented was not to help the poor but rather to help the metal-using industries of Michigan.
R: Because they're going to be recycling a lot of the aluminum.
P: Right. And glass, too. As a matter of fact they've had to alter the law so that only cans and bottles made in Michigan can be returned for deposit. Usually, if you're just in the middle of the state and you have some, or even a bunch from out (of state), they probably won't even check them. It literally got to be a problem with people bringing in massive quantities of cans and bottles from other surrounding states - for the 10 cent deposit. I remember one time, I was just walking around near the Michigan State campus in East Lansing, and there was a construction site. And behind the construction site was a dumpster. And I walked up expecting to see..you know.. construction materials, bricks, dirt. And I poke my head in and it's filled with Budweiser cans.
R: They're ALL Budweiser cans?
P: All Budweiser. I mean, it was a full dumpster and there were five or six cans of something different. Like a Miller, a Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever.
R: That construction worker got beat up when he brought that to lunch.
P: I don't know. (Laughs.) I'm sure there's a very interesting story behind this... It took me about thirty or forty minutes to get them all into garbage cans. And I found it on a Sunday morning, so there really wasn't anyone around... It ended up one store chased me away and was like "NO, we won't take any more from you today!" So, after a while a second store said the same, but three stores later and I have like 130-something dollars.
R: That's nice. How long would it take for a store to turn you away? How many times could you go before the first one says "Hey. Enough is enough"?
P: I made... I believe four trips and got about 50 bucks at the first store.
R: OK, wait. You're turning in cans?
P: Right.
R: Why would they turn you away?
P: I guess. I guess they were just getting full and they couldn't profit from any more... I remember also... The Rolling Stones played a football stadium up there. And I didn't go to see the Rolling Stones, and I didn't have any money to get in. But me and a friend of mine at the time went there with trash bags to scour the parking lot. And we made about fifty bucks that night. Actually.. I made fifty and he made fifty. So we made a hundred. We did have the benefit of the fact that he had a vehicle. So we weren't actually walking them around or push-carting them around or something.
R: So you wouldn't say that scavenging for recycled materials would be a big part of your income right now?
P: No. I mean, literally speaking. The only place in America where that's feasible is the state of Michigan. Unless you just had something godawful like free cans and like a big truck or something - it might be worth it in some of the states that pay 5-cent deposits. I know those tend to be up north.
P: I would like to state for the record that ever since I quit dressing punk and started dressing goth, cops are always nice to me. Except I don't have enough money to do it right. It is a snobbish and expensive subculture.
