Thursday, March 30, 2006

Free Stuff: Garbagescout.com

I read about this site in today's NY Times: garbagescout.com, which bills itself as a "found treasure map" and a "haven for cheapskates."
Here's how it works:

From your phone, email a picture of your find to "street@garbagescout.com",

In the body of the email type a description @ location.

For example: furniture old chairs@123 East Broadway
computer monitors look good @ west 79th street & broadway
bike wheels and parts @ 345 west 21st.

Here in NYC it is just kind of an accepted truth that if you put something out on the street, it will be gone in 5 minutes, no matter how worthless it looks. I've done it myself, both as stuff-leaver and stuff-picker-upper. Sometimes the only thing that has prevented me from snagging some really good finds was that I was on my way to work and couldn't figure out how to carry a piece of furniture to the office with me and back home again.
Anyway, I think this site is a neat idea. I'm personally not looking for a pink toilet right now, but I'm sure someone else out there is, and it's nice to know that this site might help them find one.

2 comments:

IRA said...

Wow. This is even better than the freecycle.org concept. You don't have to post your stuff and then email people back and forth to arrange pickup.

Cap said...

I thought that NYC thing about picking stuff off the street was just crazy elaborated stuff.

guess not?