Idea for thought - scrounging squad

DMS General
#1

Scrounging is a talent, Having the roving eye, keeping an open mind, remembering suggested projects, a certain rare creative mindset to twist notions together… We don’t have such a post, title, or committee at DMS that I know of, but we definitely do have several members that meet the skillset.

With much discussion revolving around the freebie shelf - might a group designation for a scrounging squad be something that might further cement our other crews together?

I could imagine such a crew maintaining not just the freebie shelf full time, but also maintaining a wants and haves board for stuff people are looking for and what some come across to possibly use in other ways.

Also - when people came across piles of scrap in their daily lives, or coming across the interesting urban harvest opportunity - they’d have a point of contact.

As for funding - this crew could scrap and recycle just about anything that came through the door including some of the waste products we produce in the metal,machine, & wood shops.

The only current down side is this type of thing does require storage and transportation. One bare minimum requirement would be at least having a DMS trailer to haul finds to & fro.

I could easily see this crew producing a free parts bin for fasteners and usable materials such as working motors and power supplies.

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#2

This is a good idea! As one example: Just a month before I joined DMS last year, an apparent hoarder/collector house in our neighborhood started cleaning out. Richardson has bulk pickup every week, so there was always something new. One week there was a stack that would easily fill a pickup truck bed of slip molds for making ceramic objects. There were animals, cars, planters… I remember thinking what a shame it was they were going, but I had no idea whom to call. This is the same house I posted the notice of the lot of several large filing cabinets out in front - the cleanup is ongoing.

If DMS had a “911 good stuff here” notification, I’d bet at least a few of those slip molds would have been salvaged.

It does need to be tempered and moderated, as it is easy to scrounge stuff that’s “too good to let go to the dump” and you wind up with a house (or Makerspace, or storage unit) full of crap. If my dad is reading this, yes, I mean you.

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#3

Like 911 - 411 idea … maybe 9411 or 4911! We do that trees.

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#4

I love this idea, One of the bins I want on the new freebie shelf
is a bin for nice small wood cutoffs, things that right now go into
the trash can in the wood shop, There are so many uses that
others could make from them from jewelry to pen blanks to nick knacks

I like cutting up cookie/popcorn tins,
As the person that is heading up the member s exchang group I would be
willing to add this to my area

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#5

I could make a “heads up scroungers” tag in the discord that people could use. Post a picture and location of the thing you saw and tag @scroungers and everyone in the tag gets a notification

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#6

I’d join that! I could think of times when I’ve seen things I don’t want… and it wouldn’t hurt to get things I don’t need as well.

#7

I have a friend that harvested the leather from a sofa her neighbor left
for trash piclup. The arms had cat scratches, lots of usable leather