Dumpster divers seek buried treasure

Greg Zanis has been “looking for gold” since 1955. Of course, “gold” is a very loose term. The treasure may appear in the form of a television set, mannequin or moped, but Zanis doesn’t discriminate. If the find has value, he is satisfied. After all, not everyone has such luck looking inside a dumpster.

A carpenter by day and scavenger by night, Zanis, 64, spends a lot of his free time searching area dumpsters and garbage routes for neglected items he can pluck and sell to junkyards or individuals. He learned the skills of scrapping from his father and passed down the family trade to his children. The unofficial business is not only exciting, but also profitable – Zanis said he earns $20,000 to $40,000 a year selling other people’s trash.

Have grill, will scavenge

“You can’t believe the treasures you get,” said Zanis, an Aurora, Illinois, resident. He posts videos of his excursions to his YouTube channel, TheDreamCar. “It’s not just about garbage. … (People are) making a living off this.”

The diving world is a sort of underground, dark-of-night kind of culture. It’s secretive, potentially dangerous and not for germophobes or the easily frightened. Outsiders rarely know the world exists, but those who join it – usually alone or with a partner – know to follow the fragmented community’s list of unwritten rules, publicized by Jeremy Seifert’s film “Dive!”

Among them:

• The first one to the dumpster that day gets first dibs. Never encroach on another diver’s territory.

• Leave the dumpster cleaner than you found it. The worst thing you can do is make a mess.

• Never take more than you need. It’s just common courtesy.

Zanis lives by these rules, especially the first: If he sees another scavenger en route, he’ll ask where the seeker plans to dive and avoid those spots. He doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes.

What many don’t realize is that diving is legal everywhere in the United States except where explicitly prohibited. As long as a person does not trespass on private property to reach a dumpster, diving is a welcome sport. There are, however, certain communities that are less accepting than others. Ordinances in Chicago and Naperville, Illinois, for example, state that commercial scavengers must obtain a license before rummaging through trash.

Always on the lookout

Zanis finds everything from bicycles to dinette sets. He even found a full set of patio furniture once. Typically he will scout the Aurora area three or four times a week with his two sons. When the pick is good, they may even fill their truck a fifth time. On weekdays, they stick to garbage routes and look for the goodies people leave out on the curb. On weekends, however, they go for a dive and dig around store dumpsters in search of hidden treasure. This is when Zanis usually hits the jackpot.

“My life might seem overwhelmed by this, but I keep a spotless shop,” said Zanis, who piles his metallic finds into his garage and waits to sell them in bulk. He often rips apart products and recycles their scraps – gold from VCRs and computers, copper from TVs – to bring the metal to different junkyards. Zanis said he watches the market closely and only sells his scraps at the most profitable of times.

“We are like squirrels,” he said. “We hang on to our stuff until the price is right.”

Dumpster diving is a hobby for some, a lifestyle for others. For Zanis, it’s a mixture of both. Not only does the pastime provide him with extra income, it also gives him an adrenaline rush – the element of surprise and suspense, the challenge of rushing to claim his turf. And it’s all close to home.

Unlike Zanis, Chana Zakroff, 21, never saw herself as anything more than a self-described “casual picker-upper or receiver.” She went on her first Chicago dumpster-diving excursion with a friend about two years ago. She was fascinated by the amount of food her friend obtained from the dumpster and decided to join the game after tasting a salad made with freshly picked produce from a local grocery store’s trash bins.

She said some stores donate food to shelters. But even so, the surplus of leftover food is overwhelming, and some things are bound to be thrown away.

Approximately 40 percent, or the equivalent of $165 billion worth, of edible and available food goes uneaten in the United States each year, according to a 2012 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Zakroff doesn’t consider herself a freegan – who minimally participate in the conventional economy and consumption of resources – but dumpster diving for food has helped her understand their beliefs, to minimize the impact of wastefulness.

Battling the stigma

Both Zakroff and Zanis have had to defend their diving. Zakroff said she uses discretion before telling people she occasionally dumpster dives.

“Not everyone is cool about it,” she said.

Zanis said he received similar reactions when he has mentioned diving.

“There is a connotation that people look down at us,” he said. However, instead of getting offended, Zanis said he just smiles and tells people how much money he makes a year from his hobby. After that, judgment subsides, and everyone laughs.

“Anybody can do it; you just have to swallow your pride,” Zanis said.