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[caption id="attachment_6900" align="alignnone" width="497"] Tinned tuna fresh from the dumpster. Mmmm.[/caption]

Is there gold in them thar garbage bins? Yes. Both figuratively, and literally, but yesterday it wasn't gold my prospecting came up with but tin, or rather tins -- a mother lode of tinned tuna. Some apartment dweller off Hemlock tossed a very large bag into their BFI dumpster, which I happen to have a key for. The plastic bag contained about 50 large cans, sans paper label, but stamped as "TUNA" on the lid. The cans weren't bulging, or dented, or rusted. The looked to be twice the volume of a basic 120 g can of tuna found in a supermarket -- at least $200 CDN worth of food. I took about 10 tins, and left the remainder in the bag, and put the bag beside a nearby set of recycling blue bins so binners could take their pick. Of course I locked the dumpster back up.

I haven't eaten any of the tuna yet, but I've handed out four of my tins -- with the caveat that it came out of a dumpster, and one person has already gotten back to me with a review. He explained it was really good tuna; better than the stuff in stores -- pink, and oily. I pointed out that white tuna was the better stuff, and the pinker it was, the closer it was to cat food. He said the white tuna was too dry for his taste. He preferred this stuff (meow!). A satisfied customer -- I gave him another tin. I'll let you know if eating it kills me. Click the image to enlarge it.

By "we," I mean binners in general. There's a perception among my "colleagues" that I never go into dumpsters; that I won't get my hands dirty. I encourage this perception: Whatever underestimates you is probably fodder for Nietzsche's "whatever didn't kill you." While I did, once, actually find gold in a residential garbage bin, and I've found small amounts of cash, that's the exception, rather than the rule, in my experience. Mostly I find bottles, and cans; useful trinkets like flash drives, and computer hardware; fresh, clean clothing, and even fresher, edible, wholesome food. And keep in mind, I barely scratch the surface when it come to dumpsters. I just don't have the patience, and I won't consume the required chemical additives to give me that patience.