Electronic Or Electrical Waste

Two bags full of old electrical appliances or e-waste, by experience I guess up to 15 kilo's, ready to go to recycle shop. Will make me only around €1,50, but with added bonus points, to redeem later for cash. Seems like a lot of work for peanuts, but it's not that bad. There are a possibly working tuner and milk warmer, but I don't even take the trouble of testing, then making product photo's and waiting for an unsure sale. The amount was collected in just four days, not that I find that much all the time, but it takes me ten minutes to walk the bags hanging from my bike handlebars to the shop and it's a sure fire direct payment for 80 % real trash: two broken chease sandwhich makers, a printer, an out of date dvd-player and two ancient keyboards. And I just picked this up on the way to or coming back from groceries.

With the other things they take, plastic and textiles I manage to get up to €15 a month. That adds up to other things, better than I did sometimes in the past just relying on selling usable trashed goods.

Rolling Weekend Bag

I refound this when making space in my tiny storage. I don't remember how long it had been there or why I didn't put it on line before. I never took it to a market, maybe because it would take too much space in the car (but I could have filled it with other things) so most likely I found it after my friend and I stopped the markets.

Funnily like the wall shelves it didn't do anything in the first 16 week automatic renewing period, after manually relisting it went within a week at €10.

Had to ship it, always a bit tensive what customer finds, because on pics I filled it up but in the box the soft material was all crumpled up. But she gave me a very nice review, top sale!

Bauhaus Simple Elegant Wall Shelves

 

These modern slim shelves are from a German hardware superstore and I suppose not for sale in The Netherlands. How they ended up in my street is the big question. They look kind of Eighties but are for sale in Germany. Just the title Dolle Katana generated no interest and the ad expired after 16 weeks. When manually having to relist I decided to ad Bauhaus and voila, just about a week later I sold one of the shorter ones still packed. €5 off my grocery bill! Waiting for more. If the unpacked ones don't go they will be donated to thrift shop.

If you are in Holland see ad here.

Dumpster Divers

A while ago I created a Facebook page for my blog, to see if my once fairly well read page after years of silence could get me some new followers. So far not much result, but never mind. What strikes me is that when I go to the account I get to see so many suggested pages from dumpster divers in the USA. Now I'm not unfamiliar with the phenomenon since even I started blogging in 2006, but I'm still totally amazed. I just can't believe what perfectly new stuff just gets tossed away. And most likely from shops that just get rid of the unsold that way. It get's handled in a different way in my country, which I know from working in retail counting stock. Not that it helps the amount of unsold unwanted stuff getting less. Pity the posters don't talk about what they are going to do with it or how or where where they sell it. Keeps it kind of vague and unsatisfacory for me to look at their foto's or films. Pic from DumpsterDiveKing.

But anyway, have a look at this random choice of some of the most active posters:

https://www.facebook.com/DumpsterDiveKing

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557513762458 (SaltyStella)

https://www.facebook.com/TheCurbsideJunkies

IKEA Vestmarka Spring Mattress

I picked this up from in front of my door (example pic from website here) months ago but failed to put it on my bed. Lack of energy and the proper moment to put the old mattress directly back in trash. That was ready to go. A hard foam, once good as new but with holes in the fabric and not so clean anymore. On top my bed frame is 90 x 200, but the mattress was 80, so not fitting well. 

I never looked the new IKEA up until just now after last night finally doing the exchange. Must say the surface felt a bit hard, in comparison to the padded layer of my old one. I kind of feel the springs but it doesn't disturb me. And I'm not unhappy about the firmness at all. Now looking at the reviews some people seem to be dissappointed. Well, what do you expect from a €89 product? Possibly that's why it was tossed away practically unused. But then that's money I didn't have for something badly needed. I'm very happy for now. I slept well and didn't wake up with any neck or back pain, what a too soft bed would definitely do.

Now it's a matter of waiting how long it will last before I can say anything about the quality (beside comfort) of this cheap product. Affordable is not necessarily bad. But IKEA could have made the padding a bit thicker.

Apart from that my cats appreciate the extra 10 centimeters, sleeping beside me all night!

Simple Wicker Table Lamp Shade

I can't remember when, but maybe even close to ten years ago I brought a wicker lamp shade home from nearby that was painted in an ugly matt orange, even close to a red lead iron base, so I spray painted it in silver wih an equally curb found can. Took it to several markets but never got rid of it. Then some years ago I took it to the thrift shop where it remained on the shelf for months. When it finally dissappeared I didn't know if it was sold or thrown out to make place for new or better stuff. And honestly I didn't care much.

So to my surprise a short while ago I found this photo in a local Facebook group: someone offering the three table lamps for free pick-up. Though it's hard to see it's silver if you don't know it, I so recognized the shape of my shade in the middle! And happy to know that after the buyer had enough of it hopefully found another destination.

Vacuum Cleaners

Having the recycle center in the neighbourhood brings trash picking to a new dimension for me. Where before I looked for saleables, or stuff I need for me, now I can pick up a lot more and get rid of it straight away for cash, allbeit not much. And get rid of unsold stuff without much effort.

So today I went with two bags of textiles, cleared out of banana boxes in my bedroom. Most were cloths and I'm not even sure any more where from. Only two I remember buying at a discount over 30 years ago and if I hadn't used them by now I am not going to anymore. Pity, but.

The rest were mainly curtain coupons. Most likely my friend gave them to me and if she did, she found them on the curbs in her part of town. A few forgotten pieces of clothing I didn't care to keep.

The fun is that on the way to the shop, at a 100 yards or so, I found a (cordless) stick vacuum cleaner, of which the interesting electric part just fitted in my back bicycle bag, together wit a media box (digital tv-receiver). But there was also a printer that I couldn't take, so I decided to come back for it. Then I was in the shop and after cashing the textiles, before doing the e-waste I said, wait, I'm going for the printer around the corner, can you hold my stuff for a moment? As they tend to round down the weight it's more lucrative to have it all together and pay out at once. They are all very nice there so no problem.

So on top of €0,95 fot the textiles I had an additional 0,89 for trash that had never even seen my house!

Here's another vacuum cleaner that is going there soon. Found across the street years ago. It's a bagless model and it works, so I wanted to keep it as an extra to my still perfectly working AEG that was given to me. However, though being a Philips it may be an early model or so, getting any dust in I need to turn it to full power, which makes a terrible noise and scares me of the thing exploding or cause a power short cut. Otherwise dust seems to not want to pass the filter. I could take that out but then? To say simply I don't like it and maybe the previous owners for the same reason.