scavenging for scrapyard

I after taking note of the trash piles around my direct neighborhood, I realized my trash was incessantly picked over. Therefore, I devoted a night to riding around Williamsburg with Kate Watkins in search of the best discarded junk. Here, and in Greenpoint, there are many industrial buildings that have been transformed into studios, so there’s a plethora of raw materials.

In one of the first alleys we stopped in off Frankin Ave, we started opening dumpsters only to find them empty. We must have seeed curious to the people hanging around because we got many inquiries as to what we were doing. When we explained to one gentleman our mission, he ran upstairs and handed over a printer that he was planning on throwing out. To heavy to carry on our bikes, we picked it up the next day.

As we continued to ride around, on North 15th and Wythe I spotted a what initially looked like a took kit. Upon further inspection, it turned out to be an old hot plate with motors. We then took a southern route, stopped around N.8th and found HUGE dumpsters with tons (figuratively) of scrap wood, cement blocks and metal rails. fail. We checked around a computer repair store and only found bags of trash and old iced coffees. Then, as we turned a corner, Kate spotted a a printer planted in a little nook in the wall. We snagged it and walked it home.

From checking out some sanitation sites, my apartment and immediate neighborhood (Greenpoint)has trash pickup Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and recycling Wednesdays. In Williamsburg the trash is collected Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with recycling on thursdays. However, none of our treasures were discovered amongst the trash, rather just randomly plotted on the streets. Overall, I would say it was a success with a lot of great materials for our upcoming project.