What have you found lately?

[Daveswife]

I see that back in 2008 I commented on things I had picked up in the street - plant pots, modules for setting seeds, a length of copper wire - all useful stuff that is just lying there, discarded.

A couple of replies referred to finding stuff in skips, wood etc. Is it OK to take stuff out of a skip or do you need permission? Although it is rubbish going to the dump, I believe that the owner of the skip still owns the stuff and therefore one should ask if it is OK before taking out those odd bits of wood that someone else is chucking out but would burn nicely on your stove.

So what have I found lately? If you make your own beer you can save your yeast from one brew to the next. I wouldn't want to keep it going too long in case it picks up any nasty tangs but at £1.50+ for a sachet of Muntons Gold that is quite a saving over a few brews.

I have found that having left a note next to the tea-making stuff in the kitchen at work with saying please put your used tea bags in here for my compost heap that at the end of the day I have a stack of tea bags, coffee grounds, banana skins etc and the compost bin is doing very nicely.

I often find fasteners on the path - the sort that screw onto a bolt - and I always pick these up because you can bet it will come in handy one day.

[crowsashes]

i grabbed a load of plant pots, big ones too the other week! all planted up now with straw berries :-) im forever picking up discarded 'stuff' currently on the hunt for bike parts. loads of bikes get chucked out here but theres always the problem of finding a stolen one :-/

my little one is currently on the trail of picking up pennies and all forms of cash which he puts in a tin at home :-D

[Mrs Moustoir]

When we lived in the UK, the kids used to pick up loads of red rubber bands dropped by the postman. My son collected a ball of them about the size of a tennis ball.

Do they still drop these as I seem to remember there were complaints about posties "littering" the streets with them?

I found them quite useful!

[bean gardenin']

Yes they do, we collect them but we haven't got enough for a big ball yet!

We recently picked up an office spinny chair and a metronome!

[pelmetman]

Don't get me started on elastic bands. I am always picking them up, can't stand litter of any description.

Before now I have collected a whole load and posted them back to the Post Office

My moan for the evening.
Sue

[theabsinthefairy]

As I whizzed past the local bottle recycling point today I noticed some discarded plastic light fittings - you know those long rectangular things that fit over the fluro tubes? - did not have time to stop to pick them up today, so hoping that they are still there tomorrow as I go past.

[Thomzo]

Don't get me started on elastic bands. I am always picking them up, can't stand litter of any description.

Before now I have collected a whole load and posted them back to the Post Office

My moan for the evening.
Sue

I picked up 30 in a quarter-of-a-mile stretch of pavement on one day last year (and that was only one side of the road). I put them in the pillar box . The next day there was a big campaign on the BBC news programmes about it and trying to get the postmen to stop dropping them. It's been a lot better since but I did find one on the pavement the other day

I worry that a young child is going to pick one up, not realising that a dog has puddled on it, or a bird is going to think it's a worm and it'll get all caught up in its insides. Otherwise it'll just take 3,000 years to decompose.

Zoe

[benjaminlanglois]

I like to go to the beach with my metal-detector (yes I'm one of those strange people with the shovel and beeping pole) yet I end up collecting more bottle-caps, nails, and crisp-packets than coins! (I even dug up a kayak once!)

[Millymollymandy]

Slightly off track here but. Several months ago I lost my sunglasses and thought they'd dropped off the cord around my neck whilst out shopping. Had to get some new ones that aren't comfy despite being tweaked by the opticians.

Yesterday my hubby found my old sunglasses in a box of cables and leads in the garage!!!

Eventually we worked out what must have happened - when we got our new French digibox he must have needed some cable or other and brought the box in from the garage, I must have put my sunnies down on the table and he must have tidied his bits back into the box including my sunglasses!

As he was fiddling around with it yesterday as we went digital in France he rummaged through that box for something and found my sunnies!!!

One happy bunny but a bit miffed at the expense of buying new ones when it wasn't necessary!

[StripyPixieSocks]

I'm not sure this counts but yesterday while hacking down the Alexanders at the back of our house my OH found 4 long plastic troughs that are now in our front garden full of good soil and herbs :D

There was also an errant Rosemary bush around there so I took some cuttings...

Technically they are both found as neither belonged to us before :D

[Keaniebean]

My kids are always finding money on the floor, but I think i'm just blind as I never seem to find anything just lying around. Maybe it's because I'm too tall, yep, thats a much better excuse.

[Cligereen]

That reminds me of something Keaniebean! When our youngest little fella was about four he had a most embarrassing but lucrative habit.

Whenever we'd go to the supermarket he'd suddenly 'disappear' periodically, only to reappear at the end of an aisle. Mrs Clig and I were nearly convinced the young fella had developed special powers of relocation or something. The best bit was that when we'd locate the little'un he'd invariably have a jumper covered in fluff and a hot sweaty little fist clutching a handful of coins This was a puzzle to us for a while, but on close questioning he explained (as well as a four year old could) exactly what he was doing... he'd get down on the floor and crawl under the shelving in the aisles and collect all the dropped coins from underneath, emerging at the end with his 'prize'.

Just how he learned how to do this is still a mystery and it doesn't say much for the cleanliness of the supermarket either...but he did show an early entrepreneurial spirit!...and the supermarket got its floors cleaned under the shelves for the price of a few coins!

That same child has since developed his powers of making money from thin air...and I'm watching closely how it's done!

[AngeB]

A small genius Cligereen!

The building next to the one I work in has changed hands and they left loads of plants, and they went in the skip so I asked nicely and the workmen kindly helped me get the solid roots out of them. Really nice pots though plastic, but I could only fit a few in my small car. My cucumber & pepper plants will be pleased of the larger home though :-)

[clare]

I am always finding money and my youngest has developed the same talent at 4.She has only found 1,2,5, and 10 pence coins so far but I'm training her to look for the paper ones like Mummy.I have found(in my nearly 40 years)lots and lots of silver and £1 coins ,loads of £5 notes a few £10 notes and 1 £20 note and when I was in spain once I found 40 euros ,my dream is for a holdall of money(used notes)with my track record I have high hopes.Once when I was broke and at work in London I thought "I could really do with £1 to buy a potato and a tin of beans to cook for lunch at work" and i rounded the corner to find one!I am still hoping for a wad of cash...............

[Thomzo]

A couple of years ago, a house along the street caught fire. When the firemen went in they found that it was a cannabis farm and the heating had started the fire.

The police dragged all the plants off but left the large plastic pots in the front garden. They were there for weeks until all the neighbours decided they looked unsightly and needed clearing up so, with the landlord's permission, we all helped ourselves. I did wash mine very carefully, I didn't want to accidently germinate any seeds.

Zoe