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What's a Palm Bay when it's at home? a vodka cocktail in a can; fruit-flavoured, tasty, sweet. Made locally. What were we talking about again? [/caption]
I mentioned here, how some binners acquire keys to dumpster locks. Pictured above is one of those collections. The owner of this set says, all the keys work, giving access to "everything." Well, almost everything; there are new keys coming out all the time, and there are, maybe, 24 more keys they would like to get. This collection is a twenty-year work-in-progress. By contrast, I have, umm, four dumpster keys.
There are only so many ways I can think of to acquire these keys:
Some times you can get them accidentally. I got a decent-quality Guard brand padlock, a while ago, to have "just-in-case." Surprise! The key also opened all of one type of Guard lock used by waste disposal company BFI/Progressive. Extra icing: Any binner with the right BFI master key could open my Guard padlock. Sweet!
There are lots of keys to collect, in the first place, because there are so many waste disposal companies to choose from in Vancouver. Each of them services hundreds or thousands of dumpsters across the city of Vancouver, not to mention the larger geographical area of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), commonly now called Metro Vancouver. Each company provides customers with dumpster locks of their choosing -- how many different locks are used, and how those locks are keyed also varies with each company. Naturally, they each impose their own zone system over the map of their geographical service area, which can be reflected in how their dumpsters are locked. I'm not going to try to detail each company's key system, because I don't know them that well, but here are the basic approaches:
Of course, you can always just break the the damn lock. This is a time-honoured technique. The padlocks are permanently welded to a length of chain, which itself is welded to the dumpster. Over the years, the padlocks, and particularly the chains have gotten bigger, and tougher. I still see broken padlocks, though.
Away from the Fairview neighbourhood, in downtown Vancouver, and the West End neighbourhood, which are side-by-each, dumpsters have been strictly under lock-and-key for a few years now. Maybe Fairview is headed in that direction, but right now, the majority of Fairview's dumpsters continue to be open for business. It's expensive for older apartment buildings to retro-fit locked enclosures, and anyway, building managers freely admit that tenants just lose their dumpster keys, over-and-over. That's true, how do you think I got this nice key? Click the images to enlarge them.
What's a Palm Bay when it's at home? a vodka cocktail in a can; fruit-flavoured, tasty, sweet. Made locally. What were we talking about again? [/caption]I mentioned here, how some binners acquire keys to dumpster locks. Pictured above is one of those collections. The owner of this set says, all the keys work, giving access to "everything." Well, almost everything; there are new keys coming out all the time, and there are, maybe, 24 more keys they would like to get. This collection is a twenty-year work-in-progress. By contrast, I have, umm, four dumpster keys.
There are only so many ways I can think of to acquire these keys:
- Pick 'em up after residents or building managers leave them in the locks, or drop them by the dumpsters.
- Buy them off the drivers of the waste disposal company's collection trucks.
- buy and-or trade for them from other binners.
Some times you can get them accidentally. I got a decent-quality Guard brand padlock, a while ago, to have "just-in-case." Surprise! The key also opened all of one type of Guard lock used by waste disposal company BFI/Progressive. Extra icing: Any binner with the right BFI master key could open my Guard padlock. Sweet!
There are lots of keys to collect, in the first place, because there are so many waste disposal companies to choose from in Vancouver. Each of them services hundreds or thousands of dumpsters across the city of Vancouver, not to mention the larger geographical area of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), commonly now called Metro Vancouver. Each company provides customers with dumpster locks of their choosing -- how many different locks are used, and how those locks are keyed also varies with each company. Naturally, they each impose their own zone system over the map of their geographical service area, which can be reflected in how their dumpsters are locked. I'm not going to try to detail each company's key system, because I don't know them that well, but here are the basic approaches:
- One lock, with one master key.
- One lock, with many master keys, often according to zones.
- More than one kind of lock, each requiring a different master key.
- A devilish combination of some all of the above.
Of course, you can always just break the the damn lock. This is a time-honoured technique. The padlocks are permanently welded to a length of chain, which itself is welded to the dumpster. Over the years, the padlocks, and particularly the chains have gotten bigger, and tougher. I still see broken padlocks, though.
Away from the Fairview neighbourhood, in downtown Vancouver, and the West End neighbourhood, which are side-by-each, dumpsters have been strictly under lock-and-key for a few years now. Maybe Fairview is headed in that direction, but right now, the majority of Fairview's dumpsters continue to be open for business. It's expensive for older apartment buildings to retro-fit locked enclosures, and anyway, building managers freely admit that tenants just lose their dumpster keys, over-and-over. That's true, how do you think I got this nice key? Click the images to enlarge them.
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