Garbage

This afternoon I took a walk around the neighborhood.  Monday is garbage pick up day and even at 3:00pm there were already some pretty substantial piles of stuff.  Some of it was pretty nice stuff in fact, and for a brief moment I thought about taking it home.  But only a brief moment.  As a minimalist I'm about less stuff, not more.  So I left it be and went on.

But it does make me wonder.  If people have this much stuff to throw out, how much more must they still have inside?  And where did it all come from?  And how much did all that stuff cost new?  I bet there was a small fortune sitting out on the curb today.

In fact I talked with a "garbage picker" for a minute - a guy who drives around nabbing treasures for himself.  He told me he's furnished entire houses just from garbage, and makes a nice side income picking stuff up off the curb and either selling or scrapping it.  Who knew?

Here's his truck as he sits poised to score more stuff:

And here are just a few of the piles I passed on my walk.  Again it was only 3:00 pm.  You should see the street by nightfall!