All kinds of finds but I cannot take any of it

fish1on · Feb 6, 2017

I work on a military base and my job takes me to hundreds of different buildings and dumpsters to support them. Base policy does not allow me to dive/take anything. I look and wish but having a paying job is not worth losing. Oh the things that I could come home with. I bet the contractors that haul them away go thru them for sure.

AlienLifeForm · Feb 6, 2017

fish1on said:
I work on a military base and my job takes me to hundreds of different buildings and dumpsters to support them. Base policy does not allow me to dive/take anything. I look and wish but having a paying job is not worth losing. Oh the things that I could come home with. I bet the contractors that haul them away go thru them for sure.

Make a deal with the guys that haul it off. Maybe they will sell some of the goodies to you after they take it.

bc5391 · Feb 7, 2017

I worked at Nellis AB in Nevada during the early 80's, brand new parts were thrown in the dumpsters.

boogeyman · Feb 7, 2017

bc5391 said:
I worked at Nellis AB in Nevada during the early 80's, brand new parts were thrown in the dumpsters.

Same here but in El Toro! Found almost 200 typewriters searched for weeks trying to find docs on them. OIC finally said we wasted enough time on it. Everyone in the unit had new typewriters. The rest got hauled out to the dump to be buried. We used to do audits and if the docs said there were to be 20 resistors in the drawer, the other 180 went in the dempsy dumpster. Needless to say a lot of our junky car tools got upgraded / traded to mil-spec tools on the way to the dump. :laughing7:

Now that I think about it, some of you guys down OC way might be interested in seeing if Irvine city or Irvine Co. still owns the land where the old horse stables were. South east from there are trenches at least 2 stories deep full of stuff. Detector & a big coil!!!!

fish1on · Feb 7, 2017

It is horrible to see our tax dollars thrown in the dumpsters.

fish1on · Feb 7, 2017

I get a new work computer almost every year, hope they are recycling or donating the old/new ones? :dontknow:

kingskid1611 · Feb 7, 2017

Ah I see your eyes are wide open now.....They normally don't recycle if the government has used them. I see them dumped and covered quite often.

ChampFerguson/TN · Feb 9, 2017

Our local National Guard rents its drill hall out to local clubs/events/etc. I always dive their dumpster before leaving. After the guys comes back from FTX or before a deployment, there is an unbelievable treasure of goodies. Too much to get to as the dumpster is overflowing.

Nothing controlled; just items like manuals, clothing, packs/pack attachments, MREs, etc.

huntsman53 · Feb 12, 2017

Most anything electronic-wise and especially anything on the Property Books has to disposed of properly, a lot of it is sold to a Contractor who recycles the metal, the Gold that some electronic boards contain and some components but it is stipulated that no whole components can be resold for use. The rest of the stuff can be disposed of in a dumpster but no dumpster diving is allowed and some items are busted up before being placed in the dumpster. Believe it or not, if you were to retrieve an item or items when it is dumped at a garbage dump or on it's way there and you were to try to resell it, you could actually be arrested and charged for selling stolen Government Property. Yeah, it is a stretch but it has happened.

Luckily in the late 1970's, they weren't so strict on some items. While fishing at the Coast Guard docks in Key West, myself and a friend found that the dumpster was loaded with thousands of Vacuum Tubes of every sort and most of them were brand new in their' boxes. We were smart and asked the Cutter Commander after it had docked, if we could take some because they might fit our' old TV's or Radios. He said take all you want and we did. Although none would fit anything we had, I traded mine' at a local TV and Electronics Repair Shop for repairs on my' old (possibly first Zenith Color Television ever made) television for as long as I needed them. I loved that television as there was no antenna reception and we could not afford Cable TV back then but it would pick up bleed-off from a Cable Box on the corner and I could watch many channels that went through the Cable Box. I could even fine tune in HBO and a couple other (back then) seedy channels late at night because my' old Zenith was a manual tune on both VHF and UHF and would somehow pickup and decipher the Cable signals.

Frank

FreedomUIC · Feb 17, 2017

I was at Fort Lewis, WA from 1982 to 1984 working in the supply room. The stuff that got tossed was incredible.
We had an IG audit coming up and they usually hit supply pretty hard. The SSG who ran the shop would throw out
anything that was not authorized for the shop to have. If we had 50 bottles of CLP and only 20 were on the books,
the other 30 were tossed. I believe the locks that had to be traced were called class 50 or 500, to long ago to remember
the exact nomenclature but they were expensive. The SSG was a wheeler and dealer, he had over 100 of those locks
complete with keys still in the original packaging. We were only supposed to have five in the whole company, he made
me haul them to the dumpster. Well the dumpster was right next to my car, oops they went in the wrong receptacle.

I still have 50 of them, still in the box and very nice ones at that. The total waste came when we inventoried our TA50
gear. Jesus, I must have tossed literally 100's of web belts, ammo packs, canteen's, wire and NBC gear. I wish I had
sniped some of that. We even tossed out wire frame back packs...... The waste was incredible. I think I still have
10 boxes of black pens that says US ARMY on them and they still work...........

huntsman53 · Feb 18, 2017

FreedomUIC said:
I was at Fort Lewis, WA from 1982 to 1984 working in the supply room. The stuff that got tossed was incredible.
We had an IG audit coming up and they usually hit supply pretty hard. The SSG who ran the shop would throw out
anything that was not authorized for the shop to have. If we had 50 bottles of CLP and only 20 were on the books,
the other 30 were tossed. I believe the locks that had to be traced were called class 50 or 500, to long ago to remember
the exact nomenclature but they were expensive. The SSG was a wheeler and dealer, he had over 100 of those locks
complete with keys still in the original packaging. We were only supposed to have five in the whole company, he made
me haul them to the dumpster. Well the dumpster was right next to my car, oops they went in the wrong receptacle.
I still have 50 of them, still in the box and very nice ones at that. The total waste came when we inventoried our TA50
gear. Jesus, I must have tossed literally 100's of web belts, ammo packs, canteen's, wire and NBC gear. I wish I had
sniped some of that. We even tossed out wire frame back packs...... The waste was incredible. I think I still have
10 boxes of black pens that says US ARMY on them and they still work...........

Good story of which I can relate! My first duty station in (formerly) West Germany was at Ayers Kaserne in Kirch-Goens from April 1973 to June 1975 in the 2nd Battalion, 33rd Armor ("The Tiger Battalion" which was the last battalion of Patton's Tiger Division) of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Armored Division. We come up for an IG inspection and between five companies (Headquarters...Alpha...Bravo...Charlie & Combat Support) and Battalion Maintenance, we had 125,000 tools and close to 75,000 parts in excess of what we were assigned, so they loaded them on S&P Trailers and hid them behind 3rd Battalion's (3rd/33rd "Pickles") Maintenance Shop. Well, someone gave up the info to the IG, the tools and parts were confiscated and shipped back to the United States for re-distribution into the U.S. Army Supply chain. What a waste of time and money! They could have made calls and wrote letters to all of the Units in West Germany requesting what parts they needed and supplied every needy Unit in Country (Germany).

Frank