Council Pick Ups

[Whiteferret]

So why do people cut off the cords?

I always thought it was so no one else would take it so they could come back at their lesure and grab it.
Whos going to take an "Unsafe. Don't take me because I'm not working" metal appliance that can be sold to the scrapys.

 

[petesbrew]

I always thought it was so no one else would take it so they could come back at their lesure and grab it.
Whos going to take an "Unsafe. Don't take me because I'm not working" metal appliance that can be sold to the scrapys.

No. It's just tightarse pricks who think they can make money from it.
It's like when you go to change a powerpoint and there's Juuuuust enough lead to pull the power point out 1cm from the wall.
Then you know it was a tightarse sparky who wired the house.

 

[komodo]

People have this perception that copper is worth a small fortune. Really it takes a LOT of copper to be worth anything worth your effort to collect as scrap.
We had all our fire services stollen at our previous workplace. We worked out that for what they stole they would have been lucky to have made $150 and it would have taken them at least 20 minutes even being the butchers that they were stealing it to get it down and into small enough lengths to get into a ute or van. They would had to have done it somewhere between 11pm and 6am. Seriously you have to wonder what goes on in some peoples heads. I could think of better ways for making more money than that for less effort if I wanted to make money illegally.

Mate of mine when he was an apprentice electrician used to collect all the scrap wire and strip it whilst sitting down watching TV at night. Took him ages to make enough to buy a few slabs. Plus he had all this cable sitting around all the time and fricken heaps of bits of insulation everywhere. Got to be honest theres plenty of scot in me but my arms arent that ******* short.

 

[sinkas]

Some people just don't get it.
There is one going on in my area right now. The people down the road threw out kitty litter, used kitty litter not in a bag or anything
just scattered around with their other stuff including deodorant cans and sex lube.

OH yeh, people down the road...

 

[argon]

So why do people cut off the cords?

I thought it may be a few things;
- assumption was that it's the same guys that pickup the working appliances or have working appliances to sell. So they cut the cords off so that the second hand stuff doesn't cut their market.
- for the scrap... but stripping that type of wire is a PITA. and you'd get very little copper out of it.
- making new extension cords?

They're a carny's close cousin... so who knows WTF they are thinking

 

[Liam_snorkel]

Scored a westinghouse bar fridge today - to use as a fermenting fridge. No more swapping bottles in the esky for me.

You have to be quick! By the time I went out hunting at lunch time, the vultures had taken every appliance except for this one, and a fridge which had a bloody big ants nest in it. Council aren't due to start picking shit up until tomorrow.

 

[the_new_darren]

Around here they come at night with "miners lights" and screwdrivers and pull TV's apart. Apparently there is a small amount of gold? in each TV.

Makes a bloody mess 'cause the TV is totally stripped.

Its a bugger too if you want a nice big TV for free.

TND

 

[Wimmig]

Around here they come at night with "miners lights" and screwdrivers and pull TV's apart. Apparently there is a small amount of gold? in each TV.

Makes a bloody mess 'cause the TV is totally stripped.

Its a bugger too if you want a nice big TV for free.

TND

This is true for most electronics, though, the kind that are worth the coin are getting less and less common. Old PC hardware, old TV's old cats from cars etc. Worth the effort if it's the right kit. Though, if your time is worth nothing, you can make some cash from it.

 

[ledgenko]

I picked up a 140 lt upright freezer 3 days ago .... just sold it for a $100 .... NOICE .... Thanks to the clown who chucked it out.... hello case of little creatures pale ale and a bottle champers for the boss..

 

[bruce86]

its only illegal if you dont ask the owners permission. If your worried just knock on the door and ask to take it. most ppl say "sure its just rubbish"

 

[Liam_snorkel]

The owner was drivin out of his driveway at the time, and gave me the thumbs up.

Whew. So glad I wasn't breaking the law

 

[Maheel]

every weekend out side Scott's metal at the gabba (when their shut) the scrap metal seagulls set up camp and sit there waiting for people to dump off old metal.

the seagulls then strip it out often on site and sell it back to scott's metal during the week

i drove past today and the seagull was helping a roofer unload his ute of roofing iron direct into the seagulls trailer :huh:

scotts have big skips sitting there and let people dump scrap steel for free, maybe they have some sort of symbiotic relationship with the seagulls ?

 

[Phoney]

Is this 'hard rubbish collection' thing something that only happens out in the burbs? In my 30 something years (grew up in rural area, lived in inner city ever since) I have never heard of such a thing. If you have whitegoods or something else big to dispose of in my local council (Sydney city), you call them up and they pick it up the following wednesday... People occasionally leave stuff out the front of their houses for disposal, but never everybody at the same time... :huh:

Mind you I've found some good stuff out the front of peoples houses in the past. Found a big TV cabinet / chest thingy around the corner from my house that had a "FREE" sign on it. Got the ute around and picked it up, took a photo of it and put it up on ebay - ended up selling it for $180! Win! Also found a BBQ that had never ever been used, still had the instruction manual and everything wrapped in plastic inside.

Best story yet - My mother in law's friend was walking down a back street in Glebe (Sydney) one day and saw a painting left out the front of a house. Picked it up, took it home and hung it up. It was apparently pretty ugly and they had contemplated chucking it out... Anyway a year or so later they had visitors around at their house who recognized the artist who painted the picture and mentioned that they were dead and quite famous. So these people went and got the painting valued - Worth around $15,000!!!

 

[Edak]

It's hard rubbish time for my area (Burwood,VIC). I have a bunch of stuff I am going to throw out but I am contemplating whether I should put my old washer and dryer out. They are old and in working order but what I don't know is whether there might be anything useful that I could salvage from them instead of just pitching them out the front.

Any ideas what could be salvaged from those?

 

[manticle]

From memory, someone used a washing machine or dryer (think it was the dryer) as part of a barley malting process. The motor can be used to motorise a mill.

 

[NickB]

I used an old motor from a dryer to run my grain mill.....

Cheers

 

[Edak]

Good ideas, It may be useful for when I move to AG, although I don't yet see myself requiring a mill that has that size motor yet, I am guessing that it would be a large mill..

 

[ledgenko]

Better I found my wife, and she is worth more than $600, I win. :lol:
Nev

Nev .. Ya Think ??? $1 million ... starting point .. and thats just for putting up with you !!!PMSL ... quality Lassy ... accept it .. your shite she is awesome

 

[ledgenko]

Better I found my wife, and she is worth more than $600, I win. :lol:
Nev

Nev .. Ya Think ??? $1 million ... starting point .. and thats just for putting up with you !!!PMSL ... quality Lassy ... accept it .. your shite she is awesome

 

[RiRo]

I rang our council (Darebin - Melbourne) the other day as I needed to 'prune' (ie, totally remove) this bloody ugly hedge in our front yard .. they told me they no longer do green waste collection of tied up piles of branches, and gave me the address for the local 'tip'. Anyway, $96 later I had all the green waste dropped of at the collection centre!! What a ******* rip off! As someone else mentioned, its only going to be mulched and sold back to us.

I remember the days when I was a kid and dad would take us kids to the 'real' tip, and we'd rummage over massive piles of crap, back-hoes and machines pushing shit around, real dangerous area for kids to be running around in thongs! hahaha.