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In San Francisco, Making a Living From Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash
Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash.
There's a child's pink bicycle helmet that Mr. Orta dug out from the garbage bin across the street from Mr. Zuckerberg's house. And a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a coffee machine — all in working condition — and a pile of clothes that he carried home in a Whole Foods paper bag retrieved from Mr. Zuckerberg's bin.
A military veteran who fell into homelessness and now lives in government subsidized housing, Mr. Orta is a full-time trash picker, part of an underground economy in San Francisco of people who work the sidewalks in front of multimillion-dollar homes, rummaging for things they can sell.
One Zuck's trash is another man's "like new".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday April 08 2019, @12:35AM
I got rid of quite a few of my "treasures" this exact same way. Earlier this month, it was an old Tektronix 535 lab scope. Have not even powered it up for over ten years. My little battery powered digital scope does it all now. That thing was so heavy I was lucky to get it to the curb without help from my neighbor's kid.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]