Pix ,What a giant waste.

In the dumpsters where I visit occasionally, found this waste. Got em categorized and stored in totes with desiccant packs to hold back moisture.There is enough seed to plant several acres not including flower beds. Should hold us for at least two weeks lol. There is 71 different veggies groups with as much as 12 packs per group @ $1.99 each package,some as much as $5.99 each pkg.Saves us both on buying seeds and buying fresh veggies from store,at least during the summer.Now if I could find all that last years cash they throw out, I could put it to good use,even a money plant would be nice.lol.All the veggie seed is Northrup KING Seed.Only 1 package of green beans in that whole bunch. That becomes a mystery. Different variety"s of same vegetables, white corn, yellow etc. Our garden area WILL NOT accommodate all the different veggies varieties. Would need at least another two acres.It"s true. our nation has become a throw away society. Shame on them, GOOD FOR US!!!! What do you guys think? NICE REPLIES ONLY. Regards LOU.

Lou, you scored!

Leonard

Probably not saleable, due to expiration date. Probably will grow just fine next year, however, if properly stored.

neighbor of mine was a merchandiser for NK...he brought me who knows how many paper grocery sacks of out dated seed...never did get any to come up and neither did my dad...he could make a telephone pole sprout leaves...good luck

This time of year many stores regularly toss garden seeds, bulbs, etc.. Many big box stores only pay for what sells, anyway. It's cost-prohibitive for the supplier to pick it back up, germ test, repackage, and resell next year. There's a reason those packets are marked $1.99 instead of 65 cents.

A friend once worked at a store in a major home improvement chain. The pay sucked, but he constantly brought home "distressed", "destroyed", "unmarketable", or "out of season" merchandise from the dumpster. The stuff they threw out would make you sick.

AG

RayP,
Yes there is a expiration date of 12-2013 on these pkg.the ones we ordered from Gurneys has a date of packaged for 2013--Sell by May 2014.Guess germanation factors don't always come into play. we had seed from several years ago ,grow and produce just fine(corn& Green beans)when we moved from the lakeshore up the road to where were at now. Thanks for reminding me to look at the packages . Regards LOU.

Local hardware put them out "on clearance" for a nickel a package. I bought them all and distributed them to family members.

BTW, I really like dumpster diving - find some really good stuff once in awhile. I used to get a lot of good oak from cabinet shops but they've all gone out of business because of the box stores with their Chinese cabinets.

It was almost a giant waste,,,until you found them,great find

You hit the jackpot. When I worked the 3rd shift years ago. On my way home in the morning I would go by a couple dumpsters behind a store and get food for my pigs. Lots of bread. then behind the donut shop for a bag of donut's for the pigs, and myself on the way home. They were all bagged up and waiting for someone. There is so much wast here in the US. You should see what industry throws out each day.Stan

Great find, It would probably be a good idea to take a dozen seeds and do a germination test. We do that with packets just to make sure they are viable.

I used to work for Syngenta in product development and I used to get PALLETS of bag hybrid seed corn. stuff they were all going to pitch. Last year I brought home 7 pallets of corn and beans. it amazes me what they throw away, and the sheer volume of it

Great find! Sad thing is.. too many stores would rather throw stuff out instead of marking it down to dirt cheap clearance prices. For instance.. putting those seeds out for a nickel per pack.. they wont do it. Many stores will not allow employees to take things they are tossing for free anymore. All part of corporate greed and other silly rules.

tractormiallis,
I totally agree. Corporate greed. Nothing wrong with the merchandise that couldn't be used in the south where 2nd crops can be grown. We use to do old seed 2nd year and better to make up our garden by the lake, always had a good garden then. Thanks for the reply. regards LOU.

Old-F20,
When we drove potato truck for local farmer,there was left in the field, great potato's.after the field was picked,my son drove the Steiger thru it, with a 24ft disc, what was left in the field could have fed 100's of folks,not to mention food for the soup kitchens.Damn big waste.Son had to do what was ordered by the owner. When unloading the trucks for the conveyor, big solid potatoes with a second growth was pitched on the floor, scooped up with a bobcat, and dumped on the rock pile.I used to salvage some, and even the small potatoes, my wife canned them.Some fine eating.Them days are gone now.
regards,
LOU

dahlin1,
We'll try them next spring,haven't got the ground for all of them. We'll see how they come out, or up.
Regards,
LOU

37Chief,
It's always a good find if you can use the items.They threw a perfectly good lawn mower with a cut shaft key in the dumpster, along with a portable generator,only needed a carb cleaned.Wired it inline for my daughter in case of power outage.Still works. They threw away pallet jacks, we cut the forks off to use on our tractor and bobcat for limbs and such.Shame to let good things go to waste.I was wondering if bread and such is still available at supermarkets dumpsters so that hog farmers can use it to feed their hogs? Thanks for your reply.
Regards,
LOU

Thanks Larry, I am like you, waste not want not.Just wish I had another 2 acres for planting, but since I haven't found any acreage in the dumpsters I'm S.O.L.lol.
Regards,LOU

Dick,
Thats a great way to distributing that kind of find.Local woodworking company still does that here, we have alot of good wood from them, their scrap pieces, they throw out or chip up.Makes nice kindling or projects.Have to be careful not to burn the grates out of the furnace with it though,extremely hot stuff.Thanks for the reply.
Regards,
LOU

AG,
Good for your friend,nothing wrong with that.Makes a person sick to look at such waste of a good product.Should be given away to those that need it, rather than being buried in a landfil or scrapper.
Thanks for the reply,
regards,
LOU

Ben there,
hope we can get some to come up next year, if not only a little time is wasted.If it comes up, we've gained quite a bit saved.
Regards,
LOU

Leonard
Atleast we thought we did.Next year will tell.Keeping our fingers crossed.
Regards,
LOU

Saw something like that on Gilligan's Island one time. They were all radioactive. Be careful.

Mark

Mark. Wishing the seed is comparable to the beans in the JACK AND THE BEAN STALK story. lol. LOU.

sure bread & stuff is still available. Get it all the time for cows, dog, chickens. Cuts my feed bill by a good 10 percent

There was a report I read someplace (Readers Digest?) that said that if we were to take all the waste food produced by a couple of the major diner chains, McDonalds and Taco Bell for instance, and feed it off to chickens and hogs we'd have enough eggs, chicken and pork to supply every family in our 3 largest states with more than they'd need for 6 months, or something like that. Best hogs I ever raised were on diner and grocery store scraps.

My oldest daughter got in trouble for taking cans of dog food that were dented and marked to be thrown away from her work to the local pound. She was told if they hit the dumpster she could have them, but not before. Duh!

There's always someone in these threads with the comment "It will make you sick [to see what they throw out]."

Well, what would you have them do with it?

If they gave it away to customers, nobody would buy anything. People would just wait around until stuff went out of season, then pick it up for free.

Then you know some scuzbag would turn around and try to "return" the item to the store for a refund. "Hey I bought this last week and I lost the recepit." All they have to do is make a big enough stink and the store manager will usually be forced to give them the money.

After that, some other scuzbag will figure out a way to hurt himself with it. Lawsuit.

How about we give it away to the poor? Poor people generally don't grow gardens. Plus the winos and tweakers and crackheads will pull the "return for a refund" move to get their next fix. Plus the greedy shameless not-poor people will be right there with their hands out.

There are just too many "takers" in society to do anything useful with the merchandise that won't cost the company more money than just throwing it out.

Count your dumpster find as a blessing and leave it at that.

(quoted from post at 14:13:34 07/08/13) There's always someone in these threads with the comment "It will make you sick [to see what they throw out].".................................

Click to expand...

There's a chance someone may have tossed these seeds per supplier recommendation. Germ may be bad, package weight/contents may be mislabled, who knows. At this point in the season, I seriously doubt it.

Many smaller retailers buy a display of seeds from a supplier, or keep their display in storage and restock with fresh packages the next year. They will discount the seeds as the season progresses because they own them. Even at 5-10 cents a pack, for them it beats the dumpster.

Many mega-retailers basically get seed racks on consignment from a supplier. Supplier gets paid for a % of retail price per packages sold. If the retailer discounts the price of the packages down to next to nothing without the supplier doing so they may loose money. Even if they do discount them, it comes to a point that the shelf space is more valuable for something else.

Odds are the reason those seeds are $2/pack+ retail and not half of that is because some retailers end up throwing half of the rack out. When a home improvement store tosses all kinds of board games they stocked for Christmas instead of donating them to a school, nursing home, etc., that is wasteful. When they toss shovels/spades with nothing wrong with them other than the stickers that have the manufacturer's name on them are tore up, that is wasteful. Multi-pack items "not labeled for individual sale" are tossed when the outer packaging is damaged. I could go on, but my point is we all pay for this wastefulness. Even if we don't (think we) pay for it at the store, the landfills aren't getting any less full.

Plenty of tax write-offs are to be had for throwing out good merchandise. Claims can be made against a shipper for damaging merchandise. Not alot of profit will be had marking it down considering the space it takes up can be used for more profitable merchandise.

AG

Hmmm....radioactive hot peppers and lettuce or another coconut pie? I hate coconut.

I just today asked the produce manager at the local grocery store about picking up there throw-out stuff. She informed me there were new rules and regulations in place. Apparantly, some scuzzbag somewhere fed this stuff to people and those peple sued the store. So now I gotta buy my hog feed at a premium price.