Carry a broom, brush and shovel with you, use it to clean up around the dumpster.
I did this at the area I used to get a lot of my metal from, one day the guy saw me sweeping up. That probably ment more than anything else to him, he actually stumbled and his head went over to one side, eyes crossed.
Told me "Thanks".
From there on he knew I was 'clean' and would notice the broom marks when I used it and know what they ment.
Another time, this was well timed and quite funny.
I had walked out of a shop beside another shop which was having renovations done. At near closing time.
A guy, smartly dressed, was asking a worker "Are you going to fit everything in tomorrow".
"Look, I dunno, we have the guys, but its a mess inside, the others have not got everything out and look, the dumpsters full!! It was only delivered at lunchtime and we have to find space to dump THEIR rubbish before we can even get in"...
There was quite a bit of desperation in his voice.....
So I took a look into the dumpster. Yeah, they had dumped a set of cupboards first...then anything flat like sheet plywood on top of that, 2x4's and a huge pile of old florescent fittings and spotlights over that.
Florescent fittings..… equals Steel and Copper. Spotlights equal Aluminium and Copper.
I started about 15 minutes later. When they were gone. Pulled out all the lights, pulled the ballasts & wire, dumped that around the corner under some stairs up a alleyway.
Sacked up the steel and walked it to my scrap dropoff area 5 blocks away, picked up some nonferrous scrap from there, & walked the 5 more blocks to home.
Got tools and better carrying gear and walked back to the dumpster, kept working till 1am, took all of the metal, stacked everything to save space, slid sheet board down the edges of the skip to give it 'hungry sides'.
Took scrap home again.
Then I turned up again just before closing time to find the well dressed guy talking to the worker, it must have been their 'meet up time'.
"How did it go?"
"Uh, great, we just finished 15 minutes ago, everything's done 'cept that stuff that's getting delivered tomorrow. **** close though. Oh jeeze, the skip, dunno what happened, got here this morning and it was almost empty.... Look, its full up now, if it had not changed we would have been fkd, I don't know what we would have done, they couldn't pick it up today, but, we were able to get everything in. And we spent all day working, we had no time extra at all, I never even had lunch, neither did Baz, we just kept moving,, jus, dunno?"
The skip was several feet overloaded in a big arch across the top, the 'hungry sides' did a great job, they even used rope to hold some stuff on. The skip was parked on a main street on the end of a 5minute parking for goods vehicles only area, 1/2 on a yellow line, near a corner.
I got about $100+ of Copper out of that, about $30 worth of Ali from the spotlights and some domestic Copper for later.
The well dressed guy with the clipboard... He had seen the situation yesterday, he couldn't help much, he wouldn't get any credit but he would be the guy who had explaining to do to upper management. Somehow this worker had covered his ass that day, he knew that.
How? Nobody but me knew. The worker got the kudos for doing what couldn't be done.
I got $150..... Right place, tight time.
Last week.....
left it a day too long, missed out on polystyrene insulation for the house, Brass taps and good sink, steel framing, sheet sound insulated drywal, some light fittings
...
I have thought up a idea of doing a job called 'Skipbusters'.
"We check your skips, remove anything recyclable, restack it for economy".
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