Just what I always wanted, an empty gum wrapper

Originally Posted by Washington Post, edited for space

Christopher Goodwin spends his days driving a dump truck but continues to pick up trash even when he's off the clock. On V Street NW last week, he collects a losing lottery ticket, a cigarette butt and a packet of parmesan cheese. He stoops over for a clear candy wrapper and holds it up for inspection.

"Obviously, this is a very banal piece of trash," Goodwin says. "But I kind of think everything deserves a second look. . . . Someone designed this, manufactured it, used it and tossed it away."

Goodwin, a 37-year-old Northeast Washington resident, is the founder of a project called Trashball. He collects garbage and puts it in one-inch plastic balls that dispense from gumball machines. Special or oversize pieces of trash get posted on the Trashball blog, http://www.guyclinch.blogspot.com.

Washington's two Trashball machines sit at the Warehouse Theater on Seventh Street NW and the restaurant Busboys and Poets on 14th Street NW. Goodwin plans to install two more, perhaps on H Street NE.

It's more of an artistic pursuit than a financial one: So far, he has sold about 3,000 Trashballs at a quarter a pop. That's $750.

Goodwin is a "proud dropout" of the Corcoran College of Art and Design and boasts that he has dropped out of every school he has ever enrolled in, except for his junior high. Trashball grew out of an idea to use garbage as a medium for fine art, but then Goodwin says he got lazy and thought the gumball machines would be easier. He says he considers Trashball "quasi-art."

Goodwin works for a Chevy Chase-based junk-removal company called Junk in the Trunk, though Trashball existed before he started working there last summer. Owner Frank Coyne says he found out about Trashball when he noticed Goodwin was taking trash home and he "started asking questions."

To protect his clients' privacy, Coyne insists that Goodwin not root through financial, medical or otherwise private records. Goodwin says he tears off any identifying information, such as names and Social Security numbers.

Goodwin enjoys hauling away trash so much that he quit his part-time corporate job earlier this month.

"I wanted to focus more on driving a dump truck," he says. "Office work corrodes my soul."

Trashball contents can get dicey. Goodwin has been known to toss dead bugs, drug baggies and broken glass into the plastic capsules. A sign atop each machine asks that no one under 18 buy a Trashball.

A handful of Warehouse regulars are Trashball devotees who plunk down a quarter every time they come, Warehouse manager Molly Ruppert says.

He gets some of his best Trashball material from eBay auctions of ephemera, or people's collections of vintage junk. But he hasn't abandoned Washington's litter, especially the Trashball gold mine of Columbia Heights, he says.

"Another way to look at it is I'm cleaning up the city in a very slow, inefficient way," he says.

I get the whole "One man's trash is another man's treasure" concept, and I myself have pulled a few items out of the trash (once I found a working Nintendo 64). Still, why would anyone pay 25 cents to get a possibly disgusting item that you'd purposely avoid if you saw it lying on the ground?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

My friend found a working Imac on the way to school one day, I personally havent found anything in the trash that was worth keeping.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I will pick up something if it's still useable in the trash. I have found a lot of VERY useful shit this way.

You'd be amazed at what people throw away. Especially those of the more...raffluent calibre. They can just buy something new instead of fixing the problem with their current item - or maybe there's a few aesthetic problems with their leather couch or something - OUT THE DOOR. Buy a new one!

These are the kinds of people who make trash-rummaging fun.

But this guy? Eh. "Quasi-art" is right. Maybe I lack respect for a guy who picks up CANDY WRAPPERS and puts them in a plastic ball. Thats not art to me. I wouldn't pay a quarter for something like that.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Jimbo found a working xbox with ninja gaiden inside of it. xD Apparently the disc loader would NOT come out.

Instead of trashing it, he sold it. Hey at least he got money out of it. o.O

But the topic above is just silly. Jimmy and I had been real fortunate to find cheap furnishings everywhere. You'd be surprised. Flea markets, coworker's parents dying, heck even neighbors that are moving. I still cannot get over the fact that we got our current loveseat (which I actually like) for $5 dollars simply because the owner didn't want to move it again. xD

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

My first apartment in DC was a gold mine for trash. It was a high rise complex, with trash rooms on the bottom floor, and people would leave all sorts of stuff in there. That's where I found the N64, and I also found furniture in decent shape, tennis rackets, and a baby's crib mattress still sealed in the factory plastic. I took that for a cat bed.

On top of the trash, the complex was in a ghetto neighborhood, and people were evicted for non-payment of rent on a regular basis. When this happened, their stuff was carted out onto the lawn in front of the building, and passersby were free to take whatever they wanted. I felt guilty at first, but then I saw everyone taking stuff. I got a nice measuring cup and some Rubbermaid containers for my kitchen that I still use today.

I was speaking idiomatically.

A couple major pieces of furniture in my apartment have come from the trash. Its pretty sweet. People leave it there cause they get new stuff. But the old stuff is still good. I've also got bus money from the trash. All I gotta do is find 20 bottles. at 10 cents a pop, I can easily get 2 bucks for the bus.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I used to collect a lot of trash, even useless stuff, then I would just glue it together in odd ways, or sometimes I would use the scraps for something useful. The only 'trash' thing I collect now is old tea boxes.
If I was walking past a trash machine and I had an extra quarter in my pocket, I might pop it in to see what I get. but in that picture, it looks like it's a band-aid which has the possibility of HIV or AIDS so that he probably shouldn't have put in there..but what ever

FELIPE NO

Man, trash is awesome as long as it's still useful. My dad has this Toyota van that's been sitting on our property since 1996 and he REFUSES to get rid of it because he insists it still runs even though we all know the engine is shot to shit, the seats have entirely rotted and the paint is more chipped than those of that black dude who bites the curb in American History X.

However, I have found some really good shit in the trash. In fact, my most recent and really great find has been a set of suede couches that I ran into on the side of the road. They were just dirty and a bit of suede treatment cleaned the grime that was on them. Now they're the most coveted spot in my house.

How ya doing, buddy?

With $750 you think he could afford some Lubriderm. Girl's got some dry fingers in that pic. You know what, just go for an all-out manicure.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by icarus

With $750 you think he could afford some Lubriderm. Girl's got some dry fingers in that pic. You know what, just go for an all-out manicure.

You do know that its a picture of a guy, right?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You never know... I've met some really butch female trash collectors. >__>

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I've gotten a few trinkets...not much worth mentioning but I appreciate them. Such as a naked woman...or at least a giant canvas of a painted naked woman, a basketball goal and...I think thats about it.

I would be going through trash all the time if people were throwing away ipod's.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

My friend and I stabbed his defective Ipod with a sword many times before he threw in the trash, maximizing the fun value out of it instead of throwing it away instantly. >=)


I think the trashball concept is cute and fun. Many people like the thrill of merely getting stuff from a dispensing machine, and this is just a more intriguing way to go about it. You never know when you'll get something plain like a tootsie roll wrapper, or something extravagant for trash like a couple of marbles. Of course, one can also argue that he is a sly accidental marketer who has found a way to entice a tiny niche market to fork over money for useless things.

I would pay if I found $0.25 on the ground to place accordingly. Or maybe just once with my own change just for fun.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I found a really old computer in the trash, it worked too. It appears that it was just over run with viruses. I really have no use for any of the hardware but I have a case. I found a processor too, didn't work but the ink cartridge did.

Quote:

However, I have found some really good shit in the trash. In fact, my most recent and really great find has been a set of suede couches that I ran into on the side of the road. They were just dirty and a bit of suede treatment cleaned the grime that was on them. Now they're the most coveted spot in my house.

I don't think I'd take any furniture from the garbage. I'd take a cabinet or something. Who knows, time will tell.

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Those capsules are pretty cool lookin', and I'm hoping that there's some interesting junk out there that would look better in those things.

How ya doing, buddy?

I seem to have a lot of luck finding money.

In school I would find a quatrer or a doller everyday. I once found a 5 dollar bill sticking out of a pepsi can. My mom always wondered why I always had change on me when I did not get a allowance.

How ya doing, buddy?

I don't know if it counts or not but 75% of my room equipment comes from second hand (trash like thingy) as only laptop, tv and PS2 are brand new. All the furniture (including bed, table and chairs for the kitchen) and some electronics (cool Pioneer Hi Fi and dance mat, LOL!) know many stories The trick is I acquire most of them not from the trash can but from the people who wanted to trash it. There is a website where people offer all kinds of stuff that they want to got rid of. It a gold mine I tell you! I'm living a second hand life, anyone cares? ;p

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I once rescued a PC that was as good as in the rubbish. Some woman was throwing it out and I asked her if I could have it seeing as she no longer wanted it. She agreed to let me have it, but told me that it didn't work, but I was welcome to take it off her hands.

Half an hour later, I had it up and running. The power supply had been unplugged from the motherboard. The PC wasn't all that good (600Mhz Processor, 64MB RAM, 4 gig HDD), but it did also come with a 15" CRT, so I gave it to my sister who still has it today.

The only thing that I have actually picked up out of the rubbish is a nice brown shag rug. It was quite big, and kept my feet warm. Had to throw it out just the other week due to it going bald, had it a good few years though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I remember back in high school there was a big skip in the yard with all kinds of things like monitors, keyboards, books and the likes. A few people were helping themselves so I jumped in and salvaged an Asterix and Obelix book, which is all in french. My brother managed to grab a life-size cutout of Yuna from X-2, which he used to leave in random places in his flat, although I don't know where it is now.

There's no point buying that stuff encapsulated in a "Trashball"; it's one of those things people buy on a sugar rush (or whatever) when it looks shiny and interesting and then forget about it a couple of days later.

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