On 9 May 2016 at 16:35, Bruce  Johnson wrote:

> Can I come root through your recycle dumpster? I promise to pay
> whatever you your scrap dealer does! ;-)

Heck, 20 years back I and my friend Jim O were asked by another
Friend (Jim S) to help him identify a few things he'd gotten dumpster
diving.

Jim O had a 2 acre back yard and Jim s had set up a big sheet of
plywood on saw horses to use as a sorting table.

Seems that Jim s had hit on a real gold mine. Some old industrial
hardware warehouse was being cleaned out before being repurposed or
demolished, I forget which.

So he was salvaging lots of copper and brass from the dumpster.

What he was wondering about were a bunch of reddish orange cardboard
tubes with wires coming out. They were smaller than a paper towel
tube but bigger than a road flare. and they were *heavy*.

I picked one up and noticed that not only did the weight shift, but
it did so in a particular way.

I just picked up another and handed it to Jim O. He got the same
gobsmacked look I probably had.

The tubes were mercury switches. For god knows what sort of current
or amperage. They had something like a *pound* of mercury in them.
Which meant that they were worth something like $10-20 each. Maybe
more.

They were also hazardous waste, but...

I'm sure all sorts of Obtravs are derivable from this.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com