Weird junk at the dump

Cash, bombs, blueprints…is this a gangster movie or just the dump?

People tend to avoid landfills, and with good reason–they’re not exactly fun places to hang out. However, there are some mysterious and sometimes dangerous secrets hidden in landfills.

 

Mattresses stuffed with cash

Even in this day and age, people still hide money in their mattresses. Terrible investment, zero return, yet there are still people who trust their bed more than they trust banks. Sometimes, that money is forgotten and the mattress is thrown out. We’ve had this happen at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? before (and trust us, the customer is often just as surprised as we are!)–of course, if we discover any forgotten money we immediately return it to its rightful owner.

 

Bombs

In Flagler County, Florida, someone found a live smoke bomb from the Vietnam War next to a dud grenade from World War II. We’ve seen it ourselves, too–one of our crews picked up the grenade pictured below during a junk removal appointment. Don’t worry–it was deactivated.

 

Rare video games

When Atari was going under in the 80s, the company decided to dump 14 truckloads of their video game library at the Alamogordo, NM landfill. They even poured concrete over the games to disguise them and it was only recently that a crew of filmmakers discovered them. Game enthusiasts worked with the New Mexico government to excavate the site to validate the contents of the landfill as part of a documentary on it. On April 26, 2014, the excavation started and quickly revealed the existence of the discarded games and some hardware, affirming the original speculation on the landfill's contents. Only a small fraction, about 1300 games, were recovered during the excavation period, with a portion given for curation and the rest auctioned to raise money for a museum to commemorate the burial.

 

Secret blueprints

Back in 2008, a homeless man was digging through the trash when he found confidential blueprints for the Freedom Tower in New York City. How do confidential blueprints end up in the trash?

 

Kittens

There are numerous stories from around the world of kittens found at the dump. These furballs haven’t necessarily been dumped either, as many street cats choose to have their litters at the dump. After all, it’s a good hunting ground for rats and mice.

One of the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? crews in Vancouver found an abandoned kitten in a fridge they picked up!  A team member adopted him and called him Freon.

 

Plutonium

Not long ago, workers in Washington state found around half a gram of weapons-grade plutonium in a safe at the dump. The plutonium dated all the way back to 1946! Where’s Doc Brown from Back to the Future when you need him?

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.