This Summer was a beautiful and bountiful one for reclamation in B-town! Along with the routine seasonal rushes of dumpster riches caused by students moving in and out throughout the warmer months here in Bloomington (IN), we also came across some exceptionally unusual and rare finds as well.
The "most unusual" dumpster find for this year would have to go to our good friend "Hippie Dave" for finding this heart stent.
What Is a Stent?
A stent is a small mesh tube that's used to treat narrowed or weakened arteries in the body. Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from your heart to other parts of your body.
You may have a stent placed in an artery as part of a procedure called angioplasty (AN-jee-oh-plas-tee). Angioplasty restores blood flow through narrowed or blocked arteries. Stents help prevent the arteries from becoming narrowed or blocked again in the months or years after angioplasty.
You also may have a stent placed in a weakened artery to improve blood flow and to help prevent the artery from bursting.
Stents usually are made of metal mesh, but sometimes they're made of fabric. Fabric stents, also called stent grafts, are used in larger arteries.
Some stents are coated with medicines that are slowly and continuously released into the artery. These stents are called drug-eluting stents. The medicines help prevent the artery from becoming blocked again.
 |
| Dave sure looks serious about this stent, doesn't he? |
Technically, it wasn't found IN a dumpster, it was found laying in the street. I know that "Cook Pharmaceuticals" manufactures such devices and assume that it was dropped by some inattentive employee. None the less, it is this year's "most unusual" find. Congratz to you Dave (with the long hair).
Our next "score" takes the number #1 slot for this year's "Dumpster Haul Hall of Fame"!
"Some friends of mine went dumpster-diving the other night and it was one of those rare occasions when I did not go with them. Despite being an advid dumpster-diver and aspiring "freegan" I had stayed at home that night to get some work done online. Imagine my suprise when I opened the front door a couple of hours later to see my friends carrying this "beast"!
I could hardly believe my eyes! It was the stuff of legends! They had scored an Alienware gaming p.c. tower in the trash! For those of you who don't already know, Alienware is a high-end gaming p.c. (starting at around $1,700) from Dell that has reached mythical status for it's reputed performance and power! Granted, that upon closer inspection, much of the internal hardware components such as the CPU and cooling units had already been stripped from the still intact motherboard and the locks had been busted (as can be seen in the pictures) it was still a rare find.
I knew that there was very little chance that I would have the time or financial resources to refurbish the unit (the CPU alone start at $400ish) and storage space is always an issue as well. I briefly thought about converting it into a shelved case to store game disc in, or maybe even building a less powerful but more affordable gaming p.c. and housing it in the tower. In the end I decided to give it to a good friend who would appreciate it for what it is and might be in a better position to actually restore it or to utilize it in some way. Regardless it was an awesome dumpster score that I thought was worth sharing!"
-figment'68
-figment'68
Well with the cold chill of fall and the coming winter we bid a farewell to this year's "Dumpster diving Season", but for many of us the "season" never really ends. Keep recycling, keep re-using, and most of all... "Keep it REAL"!
