scrounging for survival

[hayshaker]

i read a great post on multi use items yesterday but bearly nobody mentioned
scrounging for these items. stuff like used lighters to spark charcloth, lg trashbags from whereever
2litre soda bottles for improvised chacol water filters.
heck even glass bottles to knap arrow points from. let,s face it americas hiways and biways are
littered wih trash. why not use it to your advantage.lets not for get also the plants avalilable for food or firstaid.

all these things are at our diposal while on the road post shtf or not why not make use of them.

[natertot]

The big issue with this thinking has two parts. 1: YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT TYPE OF SCENARIO YOU WILL BE IN OR THE NEEDS THAT WILL ARISE FROM IT and 2: YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT RESOURCES YOU WILL COME ACROSS TO MEET THOSE NEEDS.

It will fall on how creative and resourceful one is naturally. This is why I am a fan of grouping together with others. I may not see a use for something, but someone else might be able to turn it into a five star hotel with room service. Or vice versa.

[hunter63]

Creative scrounging is a mind set and life style.......or is for me.
Good to know what and where things can be found, what they can be used for and let your mind work constantly to those ends.

Fact is there is just too much stuff, too little space, and too little time to scrounge and use everything.

The important part to save in the knowledge.

[Highhawk1948]

I agree, you need to be resourceful and recognize items that you can put to good use now and later.

[randyt]

I spent my life scrounging, can't imagine not partaking.

[Adventure Wolf]

I work construction. I end up with a lot of left over pieces of building material that most people think are garbage, and can turn it into something. That skill was incredibly useful post recession when my buying power was toasted and work dried up. I scrounged up and re-handled a couple axes and a mattock. Put in a wooden floor made from barn wood. On one occasion I helped a friend make a passive solar panel out of soda cans.

Those were rough times.

[hayshaker]

adventure wolf do you mean back in the 80,s heck i was living in a tent ww2 bunkers and so on
i know what you mean. having those skills and a creative mind set must of really helped it sounds.
was just listing to a old george jones song today these days one bearly gets by heck i could apply that song to today shoot.

[sjj]

revised...

[Rick]

I think the hair shifted a bit.

[hayshaker]

if you ask me that looks like a hawaiian used car salesman, seiously

[natertot]

if you ask me that looks like a hawaiian used car salesman, seiously

I was thinking a Don Johnson high school photo!

[hunter63]

Yeah.....Knowledge and that lamp......cool.....

[Adventure Wolf]

I wasn't alive til the end of the eighties. I'm talking 2008-2009.

I'm glad I missed the 80s. It doesn't look like anything good came from the 80s.

[Faiaoga]

I was thinking a Don Johnson high school photo!

Isn't that a picture of Sonny Bono going shopping with Cher?

[hunter63]

I wasn't alive til the end of the eighties. I'm talking 2008-2009.

I'm glad I missed the 80s. It doesn't look like anything good came from the 80s.

Huh, huh , huh....yeah you are right.....Nothing good .....huh, huh, huh...
Now the 60's on the other hand....if you can remember them....I think was fun.....yeah, fun.

[Adventure Wolf]

Huh, huh , huh....yeah you are right.....Nothing good .....huh, huh, huh...
Now the 60's on the other hand....if you can remember them....I think was fun.....yeah, fun.

Yes let me meditate and look into my past lives....

[sjj]

revised....

[WY21lmb]

I agree with the original premise of this thread. Being able to recognize the usefulness of any object is a useful survival skill. When my boys were growing up, my scrounging through dumpsters at work for copper, brass, aluminum, monel, and stainless steel paid for several new family computers, scads of baseball equipment items, and other birthday and Christmas presents that otherwise would not have been there. I just could not stand to see all that material going to the landfill. I may have been an embarrassment to upper management, but I was sort of a folk hero to a lot of the hands. Me, I really didn’t care, there were a lot of far worse things I could have been being called other than ‘dumpster diver.’ The company obviously was not going to fire me or they would have did it the first month of the 38.5 years I worked in that plant.

[canid]

i read a great post on multi use items yesterday but bearly nobody mentioned
scrounging for these items. stuff like used lighters to spark charcloth, lg trashbags from whereever
2litre soda bottles for improvised chacol water filters.
heck even glass bottles to knap arrow points from. let,s face it americas hiways and biways are
littered wih trash. why not use it to your advantage.lets not for get also the plants avalilable for food or firstaid.

all these things are at our diposal while on the road post shtf or not why not make use of them.

I do this a lot. These things are at our disposal now. Add to that that they are also in our ways, being wasted and will only be replaced again whether they will again be wasted and it starts to look smart to view them as resources, at least when apropriate. I have to force myself to moderate it so I'm not swimming in hoarded junk in my workshop. A friend and I once figured we could probably build a small home from the usable garbage along the side of a certain shortish stretch of highway 99 alone.

speaking of disposable lighters: it's worth remembering that nearly all of them can actually be refilled and their flints replaced with reasonable ease.

[Adventure Wolf]

As a show of what can be accomplished with salvaged materials, give me a couple months and I will build a shed or some other construction out of salvaged materials that I find.

Also this would be a very good DIY thread. A thread on DIY items made from salvageable materials.