I was on the road, on my way to a stop and happened to see four gas cans at someones trash for pick-up. Two 5 gallon and two 2 gallon plastic cans, all with the old style spout with a snap on or screw on cap. I could see the property owner was in the garage, and drove up to be sure that the cans were really there for the trash and not for a worker to pick up.
She told me that they have a small landscaping business and are forced by the government regulations to use only the new cans with the safety spouts. They had to give these up and they would rather they go to someone who would use them, instead of tossing them to be just more trash.
I was happy to take them off their hands.
I agree with everyone here that the new spouts leak gas all over your feet…if you can even manage to get the spout to work without a helper.
In a small town I used to live, they built a large building with tables inside around the periphery for people to leave things they didn't want any more. There was a section for electronics, one for exercise equipment, one for appliances like vacuums, one for reading material, etc. Every wekk when we'd drop off our rubbish we'd drop off things we no longer wanted that someone else might want. I got vacuum cleaners there, exercise equipment, bicycles (which I repaired and gave away to poor kids), and even TVs that I repaired.
That’s the way to do things. Here where I live there are signs all over the land fill and recycling drop offs that removing anything is illegal. Lots of times I see things that are still serviceable or repairable, but can’t take them. Heaven forbid I take something that has already been thrown away.
That landfill should have a pre-staging area outside of the official landfill for just that purpose.
I know the safety and heath reasons for keeping Joe Recycler out of the trash piles …BUT… they could allow for that with a staging area for all the possible re-useables tossing them to the trash heap after, say, a week.
You’d think in this day and age of the new three Rs ( Re-use, Re-purpose, or Re-cycle ) that the landfills would be more cognisant to that end.
Of course places like Goodwill and Salvation Army serve the same purpose, but their places seem to be over-flowing with stuff. Supply doesn’t seem to be a problem especially for gently used furniture that no one seems to want anymore.
Our county recycling center takes paints and other hazardous products at no additional cost and then makes some of these back available to the public at no charge. Funny how when you mix about 20 different colors of paint in one big hopper, it comes out beige. So if you like beige, plenty of free paint. I’ve hauled several trailer loads of paints, chemicals, etc. out there and just happy to be rid of the stuff. More to go but its cold out.
And on the combination of parts stores and recycling I once infuriated an A-Z district manager when I condemned his firing a young man for throwing a set of floor mats in his car instead of cutting them in half and throwing them in the dumpster. The mats had split where a large staple held them in a display hanger and someone had swapped them out for the customer. Corporate policy was to destroy and dispose of such items and the manager considered taking the mats as theft. The A-Z management ethos seems to be quite autocratic. When I compared the company policy to burning off fields after harvest rather than allowing the poor to glean them the conversation came to a cold end.
The thing I really like about my 20 year old red plastic gas containers is the spout has a fine mesh filter screen in the outlet. Helps prevent the carb orifices of my lawn and garden equipment from getting clogged up. And it indeed does catch stuff, when it starts looking a little clogged I back flush it.
I’d like to buy some of that super fine mesh screen material to use with funnels etc, but I’ve never found a hardware store or auto parts store that sells it.
In an effort to avoid carburetor/gasoline problems I have installed fuel filters and fuel shut off valves on all my 4 stroke engines. When shutting them off I close the fuel valve and let the carburetor run dry. This spring all my four stroke outdoor equipment will start(hopefully) after being dry all winter and I hope there won’t be any problems.
Years ago before we got into recycling, one guy nearly went to jail because he was collecting cans out of the garbage and keeping the money. Some called it stealing, I called it making a fool out of the administration for not recycling. Personally I think he should have gotten an enterprise award but some people are pretty hard nosed about their garbage. Gotta remember though that some companies rate their managers on how many times they write their employees up.
Speaking of waste, when I lived in OKC there was a train derailment of grocery products and other goods. Nothing too serious and they got the cars back on the tracks and got them where they were supposed to be.
One of those cars held 6000 cases of various forms of Similac; the baby formula sold in stores and used in hospitals. Out of those 6k cases there were maybe 2 dozen that had damage to the corners and things like that due to the load shifting slightly.
Regulations required them to load the entire 6000 cases on trucks, haul it to the landfill, and bulldoze it all under.
They did the same thing with about 20,000 cases of Ramen noodles.
Officials followed each truck to the landfill and made sure that each load was crushed and buried.
The thought of destroying tons of problem-free products which could have accomplished so much good is pretty disgusting to me.
There was enough Ramen noodles there to keep an entire university going for a full semester…
My dad worked construction most of his life. He was involved in building a community college and at the end there was a stack of about 30 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood and about a ton of other construction lumber. The state and county officials would not let that lumber and plywood end up anywhere but 6 feet under the ground. He was ordered to use the excavator to dig a hole and bury it.
Another job site it was tons of stone floor tile for an insurance company headquarters. Dig a hole crush it with the tracks of the machines and push it into the hole to bury it.
Such waste. I’ll bet the state and county workers could have used the plywood for covering holes where they were working. And I’m sure some non profit was building something that the floor tile could be used for.
I wonder why they couldn’t return the unused plywood to the vendor for a credit or refund? Maybe with state contracts there’s just no way to accept a refund once the contract is finished.
I suppose none of the people in charge wanted to deal with all the red tape from returning it or at least putting it to good use.
I’ve heard other stories just like that. Bury it instead of using some common sense.
Years ago (1980s) we rode horses on some property near a vegetable farm. They closed their stands for the year and left tons of good veggies to waste away and rot in the fields. We’d drive back with our lights off and collect up gunny sacks of Eggplant, melons, peppers, zucchini, cabbage, and squash.
Why they just didn’t have the food pantry come out with volunteers and pick it. Or have a local radio station announce that you could pick for free.
I guess that they couldn’t have collected insurance on crop loss.
I’m getting back to cars, before Carolyn reminds us . . .
When I was working at the dealership, it was expressly forbidden to take home anything that was in the trash. We were told it wasn’t out property. And we were told, if something isn’t your property, don’t take it home.
We had a meeting, and the manager made it extremely clear, that it would be considered theft
He also made it abundantly clear, that the old car parts were to be thrown in the trash, not saved or taken home. He said if the customer sees you taking home his shock absorbers, he’s going to question your honesty. He’s going to wonder if they even needed replacement in the first place
The manager also reminded us that the dealer had a contract with a scrap metal company, which regularly came by and took the scrap metal away. He said by digging those old rotors and shocks out of the scrap metal bin, we were interfering with the scrap metal guy’s livelihood.
at the steel shop we had to inspect our nylon slings for damage and discard them when they exceeded the abrasion standards. once they hit the dumpster tho, they were fair game.
even if they couldn t be trusted to lift 5 tons anymore they still made great tow straps…
This has nothing to do with car parts, but it does have to do with parts. One annoyance for us has been trying to replace the sponge mop head on the kitchen mop. It seems the mop has changed styles when the sponge wears out and we end up buying a new mop. One day we were in a big discount store and I saw a mop head that would fit our mop. There was only one left on the rack and the cellophane sack containing the nuts and bolts to secure the head to the mop were missing. I decided that it would work as I could just use the old fasteners from the old mop head. However, I decided I should have a discount since the fasteners were missing from the new mop head. We went to the service desk where I explained the situation. The cost of the mop head was $1.98. The young woman at the desk offered a 10% discount which I thought was fine. She then proceeded to press buttons on her calculator and couldn’t figure the price with the discount. She then got her supervisor who punched buttons into the calculator. She couldn’t calculate a 10% discount. The supervisor then got the manager. He was an arrogant slob who said, “Let me show you how to calculate a 10% discount”. He punched some buttons on the calculator and said, “The price is $1.98 With the 10% discount, we should charge him $1”. He then looked at me and said :“Isn’t that right?” “Oh yes”. I replied… “That is exactly correct”.
We spent half an hour at the service desk, but it was more fun trying to see if anyone was knowledgeable enough to calculate a 10% discount on $1.98.
Well $1.78 or $179 depending if you want to round up the .2 to a full cent, plus tax of course. Before the new cash registers for dummies with the pictures and everything pre-programmed, I would sometimes offer change making tips to confused teens. “It’s easy, just start with the price, then . . .” They often start with the amount of money given them and work down instead of starting with the price and working up. If China ever decides to blockaid our batteries for phones and calculators, we’ll come to a dead stop for sure.
