We produce 670,000 tons of garbage each day in America. That is a lot of garbage. And in my fine city of Chicago, we contribute a significant portion of that. Before all that Chicago trash gets picked up and shipped off to the landfills, it sits for up to a week in the miles and miles of alleyways crisscrossing this city.
One can gather from the many scavengers trolling up and down the alleyways with their trucks, bicycles, and shopping carts, that one man's trash is another man's treasure. So I decided to brave the ghastly stench and buzzing flies, and go hunting for some loot of my own.
Now I've certainly acquiesced my share of furniture from alleyways. But I'd never actually gone out scavenging for the treasure the trash bins of the city might hold before. I felt both excitement and a good amount of apprehension regarding my expedition. I gathered together some supplies: plastic bags to store loot in, anti-bacterial cleansing wipes (so glad I thought to bring these), and lots of water to keep me hydrated in the 90 degree heat. Then I hopped on my bike and set out for adventure!

Some things I learned:
-Hold your breath before opening each bin.
-I am too small to literally dumpster dive. Most dumpsters come up to my shoulder and I highly doubt I would have the upper arm strength to get myself out of one. I quickly learned that having something long and hard that I could use to "grab" at things in the bottom of a dumpster is essential.
-There is absolutely no difference between what people put in the blue recycle bins and in the black garbage bins.
-People look at you funny when they see you going through the trash.
-Scavenging for treasure is emotionally a really interesting way to spend a day. It is all at once exciting and filled with endless surprises while at the same time nauseatingly gross and it fills one with a slight but ever present sense of shame.
-There is definitely treasure to be found!

Click on the pictures below to see the many treasures I encountered throughout the day, as well as the loot I deemed worthy enough to take home with me (you can tell which things those are because the pictures are taken on my floor instead of in an alleyway). I do want to give mention of my favorite found treasure of the day here in the body of the praxis. Merely an hour or so before I headed out on my expedition, a fellow Foecakes mate posted asking if anyone had any plastic easter eggs he could use for a task. I did not, but then, near the tail end of my journey as I was close to passing out from the heat and the stench, I found a box of plastic easter eggs just sitting there waiting for me in an alley. That pretty much made my day.