Re: Dumpster Diving - Legality vs Reality and health

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Ed Phillips by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <evp-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Tesla list wrote:
> 
> Original poster: "Nick Andrews by way of Terry Fritz
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <nicothefabulous-at-hotmail-dot-com>
> 
> Legality and Reality, two separate, albeit related entities.  If a company
> just carelessly throws out sensitive info into a dumpster, they deserve
> whatever might happen...  I would be more concerned about medical trash or
> other hazardous waste in those things.  Hepatitis can live outside the body
> for a week.  A gold bar isn't worth your liver!
> 
> Similarly, one should always look at receipts and such before tossing them.
> If it has any of your credit/check card info on it, burn it or shred it
> first, and always shred those offers for credit as well.
> 
> I've found some cool stuff in trash areas, old TV's, microwaves, magazines
> and even cash!  Just be careful.
> 
> Nick A
> Littleton  CO

	During my long days at Hughes Aircraft Company we had a place between
two buildings which was known affectionately as "trash alley", just a
long row of dumpsters.  Over the years I picked up several good NST's,
lots of solar cells, and many other bits of "neat stuff" which wouldn't
be of much interest to TC nuts.  Periodically "someone on high" would
order "lab cleanup week", during which all labs were to be scraped bare
of "useless stuff".  That usually meant putting junk in boxes out in the
hall, to be picked over and squirreled away by the guys in the other
labs, but some of it made its way into the dumpsters.  Remember - "one
man's junk is another man's treasure"!

	As to the legalities, we have local ordinances against  going through
the trash bins we place in the street for pickup, but long before dawn
on "trash pickup day" cars roam up and down the streets and the guys
(and gals) in them still go through all of the cans.  One really amusing
thing happened here several years ago, and I would have given a lot to
have seen the final outcome.  We were having a lot of trouble with
skunks digging up our back yard, so I rigged up a "skunk zapper".  This
was a couple of wires run around the yard at about "skunk height" and
mounted on regular PVC pipe; the thing was powered by the good half of a
9 kV, 60 ma transformer which I managed to short out by gross
stupidity.  Anyhow, I originally thought it would just give the skunks a
good jolt and send them on their way better than the spark coil I rigged
up originally.  First skunk which encountered the thing was almost
literally fried to a crisp, or at least the skin on the back where the
arcing went on and on.  First we knew about it was when the "awful
smell" came wafting into the open bedroom window.  The combination of
burned skin and released skunk juice was incredible!  I tried taming the
thing down by hooking an 0.002 mfd capacitor in series with the
transformer but still managed to do in about 10 skunks, about as many
possums, and lots of rats.  The routine was that when we'd had a kill
we'd put the remains in a plastic trash bag, set it out on the front
lawn and then call the police and tell them we had "a dead animal", with
no details as to how it happened to die.  The police would then call the
humane society which would send a guy out to pick up the corpse.  My
wife talked to him several times and he told her "I know what you have
in the back yard, but don't tell me as I suspect it's illegal".  He
preferred picking up remains to getting live skunks out of the trap I
used before this.

	Now as to the dumpster story.  One kill was during the night before
trash day.  As usual my wife and I went out into the yard and I picked
up the skunk with one trash bag while my wife held another one open for
me to dunk the skunk into.  I put the bag out in front as usual, but
someone picked it up in the very early morning hours and hauled it away,
thinking it was something good!!!!!!!  We've always wished we'd been
around when the person opened the bag and found out what was really in
it.............  The reason we know it was a dumpster diver who got it
was because later in the morning the humane society guy came to the door
and asked where the corpse was.

	Long way from TC's, but at least the power source was an NST.

Ed