Taking Back the Streets: Dumpster Diving in Style

dumpster turned into living room photo

London designer Oliver Bishop-Young's work "focuses on skips [Britspeak for dumpsters] and looks at three main areas: exchange of waste materials, re-use of waste and making use of wasted spaces."

While he does wonderful things with dumpsters, turning them into everything from swimming pools to skateboard parks, he has a more serious ambition.

tools for dumpster diving photo

He has developed useful tools to help determine what is in a dumpster, including a mirror because "It can be shameful for some to be seen peering into a skip", a blackboard to provide a catalogue of what is on offer.

map for dumpster diving photo

He then set up an online system so people can share the knowledge of what they found, so that dumpster divers can go get what they need instead of having to randomly search, a sort of Google Map for dumpster divers.

dumpster turned into skate park photo

dumpster turned into pool photo

Dumpsters always seem to be subject to a law of their own; we see them dropped in no parking zones and even bicycle lanes. Oliver Bishop-Young takes advantage of their ubiquity to turn them into places for people as well as a source for useful stuff. ::Skipwaste.org and ::Oliver Bishop-Young via ::Designboom

Other Dumpster renovations:
Transformers: Swintak Turns Dumpster into Boutique Hotel :

TreeHugger on Taking Back the Streets:
Taking back the Streets: Its Called Roadwitching
Turning Parking Spaces into Parks
(Park)ing Day: an Activism Success Again

TreeHugger on Dumpsters and Dumpster Diving
Take a Dive In a Virtual Dumpster
Freeganism: The Art of Dumpster Diving
Zen and the Art of Dumpster Diving
How to Dumpster Dive