Why do people throw perfectly good stuff away?

Not everyone does. There is the free section on Craigslist that helps people get stuff to someone who can use it.

Why do you persist with your prejudices? Why even mention that it is a low-income housing project? Do you think people who have high incomes do not throw things away? Perhaps they no longer had a baby. Maybe they were just putting it out there for someone with the need to take it.

@marinelife…as I said in the details,my daughter mentioned it in her FB post. Her FB post said, “Ok, I’m failing to understand how you can live in LOW INCOME HOUSING and afford to throw away a 300.00 high chair. Yup that was me dragging it away from the dumpster this morning.”

I would use Craigs list, or at least put it out on the curb with a free sign on it!

I don’t know about the community you and your daughter are in, but in our area, people purposely leave good stuff out by dumpsters for others to come and get.

It saves them the trouble of calling for free pick-up by our local organizations, and dumpster diving is a big deal here as well, with the college kids.

But when you put it by the dumpster you run the risk of it actually going to the dump instead. People around here often put stuff out by the curb with a sign on it. If it was actually by their trash, I’d hesitate, not sure whether that’s just where they keep it (like a nice, big piece of lumber, for example,) or if they were actually throwing it away.

You know, I’d like to be a sanitation worker for a week. I bet they have some stories to tell.

@Dutchess_III Oh no, most of our sanitation workers will leave good stuff right where it’s at, but it’s usually gone in a matter of hours.

I hate to admit it, but one of the college kids left a really nice brand-new couch (w/o arms) and the matching pillows and throw outside and we ran and grabbed it for my mom, since she has a one-bedroom. It was outside less than three hours and perfect.

The sanitation workers leave it?

Well… when I was a poor single parent, I didn’t have the energy to post to craig’s list or find items a new home… or even sell them, so this is not a surprise to me. I seriously was not even able to recycle until I “moved up the ladder” a bit and got my life more together.

Parenting is exhausting. Being a poor parent, as I’m sure you know, is even more so.

Sounds like a great find for your daughter.

I don’t know how old your daughter is, but I think nowadays many young people, as well as those older, tend not to think in terms of the potential future monetary and sentimental value of possessions. Growing up, I heard my mom warn over and over to be careful what you throw away because it may be valuable one day, or at least usable. I ignored her, of course, and over the years tossed lots of stuff I wish I still had to sell or keep.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room My friends who are poor and live in apartments don’t have room to store items past their usefulness, although I agree with your sentiment. We live in a more disposable society now.

As a poor single mom I would have SOLD it somehow, some way! Now that I’m no longer poor, I’d put it out on the curb with a “FREE” sign. I can’t bring myself to throw anything away that could have the least bit of usefulness to it. I can’t even throw away empty jars! Glad we’re putting up a barn on our property this summer. :)

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room Man…I wish I still had my first Barbie Doll which I got in 1963….I don’t think I ever threw her away, but I lost track of her somewhere.

@Dutchess_III Oh yeah, it it doesn’t fit in the dumpster, often they just leave it, especially in certain areas by the college.

I have asked this question many times. We have a couple of rental properties and are constantly amazed at what people leave behind. And I am talking about a planned move at the end of a lease, not a middle-of-the-night run.
I used to think, because most were/are students that it had to do with having no personal investment in “things” because mommy and daddy bought them but that leads me to wonder why mommy and daddy are not asking “what happened to that new vaccum we bought you last year?” or “where is that new dining room set?” and the conclusion I have come to is that they do not care either. Which would actually go a long way to explaining the childs attitude.

Pat answer: It has to do with us going from a producing to a consuming population. Consumption is the catalyst that drives our lives. Through our choice of economic systems with its emphasis on buying simply to get the newest and latest and not because we need it we have become a disposable society. Nothing matters and everything can be replaced and besides the new ones have upgraded features/colors/options.

Oh, yeah….I can see that @KNOWITALL. We have a POS fridge we need to get rid of. If nobody wants it I’ll have to call the city to have them make a special trip to haul it away. Anybody want a POS fridge? Runs. for now, anyway! And the seals are pretty torn up. But it would make a good beer fridge for your garage!

Perhaps there was a safety recall for the high chair.

That’s a good thought @nikipedia. I’ll look into it. But if there was a safety recall they could return it and get their money back, or get another chair.

I’m going to go along with @KNOWITALL that many times it is known smeine else will come and take it before it is thrown out. I live in a very nice apartment complex, and there is a big sign by the dumpster saying not to leave furnture or appliance by the dumpster, but I have seen furniture and appliances left there. Two weeks ago I needed to throw out my vaccuum cleaner, and being the rule follower I am, I asked the head of maintainence where I can properly dispose of it. His answer was to leave it by the dumpster and someone handy will most likely take it, not to worry about the sign.

I would almost never throw out something that worked well, I would always try to ask around if someone needed it. However, in an apartment, in small quarters when someone is finished using an item, sometimes it is just easier to throw it out if they no longer have use for the item. Sometimes convenience is worth more than any possible gain of money or even the gift of giving. It depends on how much effort it is going to take I guess.

Some people are just in the mindset of everything being disposable. It’s a shame. So much waste in our country. It is bad for so many reasons. It helps create a market of inferior quality goods, it clutters our landfills, it costs more money in the long run.

If there is a safety recall a part is usually supposed to be removed if the chair was replaced by the company, usually so it is not easily set up and utilized.

@JLeslie More people should be using the Craigs List barter system, it’s soooooo cool!

@KNOWITALL Just takes more time and there is a security risk. My husband and I sold something on Craig’s list for the first a couple of months ago. It was unbelievable! The response was incredible, we sold it basically in a half an hour. We had waited until he was in town, because we didn’t feel good having some come to the house with just me home.

We had a great experience with it, but I let my husband handle it. We got a really cool Civil War revolver replica in exchange for our unused half-freezer, and made a new local friend who’s now on my fb!

Oh, we had a great experience too. The guy was from the same place as my husband (a part of Mexico City) and also had lived in raliegh, NC like we did, we were all living in TN when we sold it. Weird coincidences. Very friendly, he was so happy with what we sold him.

Well, I got a “new” fridge for $75 off of FB! A helluva buy. :)

Freecycle.org was started because of this.

My brother used to be a sanitation worker (garbage man), but he saw so much good stuff in the trash that he became a junk dealer. He made a living picking up “garbage” and selling it at the swap meet.

Wow….interesting thought @YARNLADY.

Maybe it was someone who won the loto?

But they say do not to go by the appearance, when it comes to high chairs, cribs, and the like.

Incredible how much qulaity furniture is found on the curb though.

Playing devil’s advocate: Maybe the people died in an accident their family couldn’t bear to keep the highchair. Maybe the child died of a contagious disease. Tell her to use bleach. Maybe there is something broken on the highchair that your daughter will discover later.

What is your daughter going to do with the highchair?

Sometimes it’s not worth the effort for some people. I am happy that one of my husbands employees is a “junker” and goes to the swap meet every weekend. Te only problem is that he would like to spend OUR time salvaging parts. We have had to tell him that he is welcome to the parts but he has to come back on his own time to get them.

Yeah. Used to live in low income housing myself. The Dumpster was like the Craigslist “Curb Alert”. Everyone checks the place a few times a day, waiting for something cool to come around.

In fact, the dresser I’m using right now was taken from the dumpster enclosure.

Besides, even now I sometimes drive around the wealthier neighborhoods on trash day. Rich people throw out all KINDS of good stuff. I just got a brand new microwave a few months ago.

The best second hand store in Wichita is located about ½ mile from the richest part of town. It’s a little known secret. It was a goldmine! But I haven’t been there in years and years.

@bkcunningham She had twins in Jan. so she’ll sho be using it soon. We need another one!

It just never occurred to me that they’d put it by the dumpster if they were hoping someone would pick it up. Hmmm.

Oh sure. In fact, I was right on the way to the dumpster, so I could see what people were dropping off from my kitchen window. I loved it on Saturday afternoons, when people were moving in and out. Half of my son’s baby toys and books came from there.

:) My kids have no qualms about dumpster diving! Hell, I taught them that as soon as they could climb!

In our neighborhood, we just put things we don’t want out by the street and they are nearly always gone by the next day.

Same here. No matter what it is, it gets taken. Wish I’d known about this when my kids were being bratty teenagers. “Why don’t you go it out of the curb for a few hours, see what happens! :)

Doesn’t Craigslist have a “curb alert” section where you can tell others what you see on the side of the road that they might be interested in?

Hell, it’d be gone before they ever saw the ad! I mean, it goes quick whatever it is.

My nine year old grandaughter was watching Mom clean up the high chair and asked her “Mom. Why do you buy stuff out of the dumpster?” LOL.
Yesterday I asked her if she was going to eat the tomatoes off of the tomato plants we planted. She said, “No. I’m gonna sell them to my dad.”
“You’re going to SELL them to your dad?”
Such is the life of a low income child! :)
As an aside, off off topic, damn it, she brought a little friend home from school with her. A completely delightful child. They were having a picnic and I went out to tell them something and her friend says, “Shhhh! My foot’s asleep!”
I’m done and shit. Thanks.

Some people I know do not value things that are given to them for free. They receive charity and have no respect for the items they receive.

Sometimes there’s too much effort involved in getting rid of something, making an appointment for someone to come look at it (even if you’re giving it away it involves putting it on the internet, making an appointment with a stranger, risking having them not show up, risking having a stranger in your house), or hauling it somewhere. It’s easier to just throw it out. I did this recently with some TV’s and the nice piece of furniture the TV was on. I was cleaning, had someone available who could chop up the furniture, and so it was chopped up and put by the curb. I hated the thought of perfectly good TV’s being in a junkyard, but nobody wants old TV’s any more.

We just sold an old, tube-style TV for $40 at our garage sale last week. It went to an elderly gent, and his son and grandson came over later to haul it out.

I posted this on FB the other day—- “Well that was cool! Corrie Lee, you know your hutch and my area rug that have been outside in front of our house all week since the garage sale? Well, a couple came by. They just moved here from Portland Oregon. They took a Greyhound. They came with $7.00 in their pocket. They have nothing. When I said, “Yes, it’s all free,” her eyes just lit up. I thought she was going to cry. They’re coming back for it. I’m trying to find mo stuff for them!”

I ended up giving them an old dresser too. That had 0, zip, nadda. Nothing.