Last December, Forbes published my latest article on Darren Atkinson, hands down the most exciting, thoughtful and skilled garbologist and dumpster diver I’ve ever heard of. My first-ever article for Wired was an article about Darren, back in 1997, and more than ten years later, Darren’s still at it. Darren’s got the perfect zero-capital, socially conscious enterprise — drive around the industrial suburbs, collecting the scat of the wily corporation as it progresses through the twists and turns of its life-cycle, and panning out major cash in those fewmets.
The last time I saw Darren, he was in London with one of his bands (he drums in two Who tribute bands), financing his trip with garbage: he’d been saving British power-cables from Canadian dumpsters (many servers come with UK, Euro and US cables), and he had a couple thousand in one of his suitcases that he flipped for UKP1 apiece. Darren’s full of these mindblowers — I keep telling him he should give garbage tours of Toronto and charge admission. Certainly, my nights in the trash with him are some of the most memorable in my life.
It started when a punk-rock neighbor in his rooming house tipped Atkinson off to the amplifiers to be found in the dumpsters at Bose. As a marginally employed drummer recently arrived from rural North Ontario, Atkinson was motivated to check it out for himself–and thus began an illustrious career in garbage. Before long, Atkinson was recovering dozens of 386 motherboards–the 486 chip had just come out, making older machines obsolete–and selling them at garage sales. This connected him with a network of smart, broke, geeky students and early new-media types who helped him learn what was worth keeping and was just junk, and before long, Atkinson was making money hand over fist.
Some of that money went into founding businesses–a recording studio, a storefront–neither of which prospered. But Atkinson isn’t bothered by the failures: “I’m my own rich uncle. I bankroll my own ventures. I couldn’t have this laid-back attitude if I’d paid for my stuff, or if I’d borrowed money from a relative, if I’d had to save face or felt the desperate need to service a loan or service my relationship with a bank or something. So I can afford to let go. I can build another studio. I don’t know how other people do it–they’ve got a family and loans.”
Garrulous and hilarious, Atkinson’s a poet of garbage who fancies himself a scatologist, spending his nights nipple-deep in corporate excrement. “My dad was a hunter, and though I was never into that myself, I never forgot him explaining to me that the way you track your prey is though its crap. You can tell how the herd is eating, if there’s a sick animal in the group, whether they’re growing or contracting. If I was a CEO, I’d spend some time out back in the garbage every day–you learn more here than you ever could from a balance sheet.”
It’s Just Garbage,
Darren’s site: Jack of All Trades, Master of Drums,
My dumpster diving photos
