Merry Hippie Christmas!
Have you heard about this underground celebration?
The Urban Dictionary defines it as “the day following move-out day, in areas where most leases expire simultaneously, during which the curb is a treasure trove of discarded items.”
In Colorado, this annual festivity always coincides with graduation day at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
On this day, thousands of students pack up for the summer holiday. Home. New schools. Jobs. A transient clan of spoiled young adults chucking massive quantities of valuable and functional products in the trash.
This carnage – I’m talking about not only food and clothing, but books, electronics and beyond – triggers a spontaneous salvage operation of impressive breadth. Boulderites emerge to pick, dig and, more often than not, dive into Dumpsters for precious booty.
Nate Kramer, CU senior and man about town, explains the supply-side economics of the situation.
“You get all these people, you know, they’ve accumulated all this stuff, being active consumers,” he tells me. “They say, ‘Man, I can’t put the stuff in the suitcase. I got drunk last night. I don’t even know what I have.’ You know, yada yada … and for the freshmen, they have to leave immediately … what are you gonna do with that extra stuff?”
Throw it in the garbage, naturally.
Mom and Dad would be proud.
Take heart, parents, in the back alleys and rear docks of the residence halls, someone is grateful. Scavengers. On foot and in trucks and cars they descend.
Not only can Dumpster diving be fun and lucrative – and quite often, illegal – but I’m told that it’s seen as an ethical responsibility. So much so that some of the Wasters are beginning to take pity on the Scavengers.
“I found a MiniDisc player in the garbage last year,” says Kramer. “It was easy. A lot of people are nice about it these days. There are people who make those discreet piles next to the garbage, you know. Instead of putting the stuff in the Dumpster with the rotting cabbage, they’ll put the stuff next to it.”
Dude. That is outstanding.
Dan Baril, recycling program manager for CU-Boulder, attempts to organize a more responsible system to deal with the squandering masses.
“We don’t promote Dumpster diving,” he contends. “There are definitely liability issues. Someone can have a reaction to things in a Dumpster. They can be poked or sliced – there is potential for injuries. Then again, I’m not going to be the one telling them to get out. We sort of like it because they pull material out of Dumpsters.”
Hmmm. That sounds dangerously close to “promoting.”
In any event, CU has set up donation stations so that students can consolidate their extravagant waste into bags, which are then collected for Habitat for Humanity’s thrift store.
What has Baril found these days? Unopened textbooks (who needs them?). Unopened care packages from loving parents. And, I kid you not, a television.
Jack DeBell, development director of the recycling program at CU – and now the new owner of an excellent swivel chair he found tossed behind a sorority house Dumpster – has a more proactive view of Dumpster diving,
DeBell’s an avid “re-claimer.” (And professional re-claimers are the only ones who should be hanging out behind sorority house Dumpsters at weird hours. Otherwise, it’s just spooky.)
“These people are very mobile,” DeBell says of the students. “That combined with a high level of affluence make this a perfect storm of disposability.”
Perfect, perhaps. But Hippie Christmas waits for no one. I learned that you must move fast.
Friday was graduation. By then, the heaping Dumpsters had been picked clean of all the primo stuff. Though one reclaimer told me it’s really difficult to get to the bottom of a large Dumpster without being poked, sliced or otherwise mangled.
So by the time you read this, you’ve probably missed out on this season’s fun.
But, as you all know, Christmas comes every year.
David Harsanyi’s column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 303-954-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
