I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

I live in an apartment building in downtown Durham that houses more Duke University undergrads than any other category of person—a friend once characterized it as an “adult dorm”—so it wasn’t all that surprising when, last week, I found a cute little table in the trash room on my floor. At the end of the school year, a lot gets thrown away. The table was in great condition, amid stacks of linens and unopened boxes of date-nut energy bites. Made from clear acrylic, its edges were tinged a neon lemon-lime color that changed with the light—sometimes appearing to be part of the acrylic itself, other times a reflection dancing along its curves. I took it home. When I looked it up online, I discovered it costs $900. (Shipping cost: $199.) That was retrieved from the trash room at the end of my hall, where you put things down the chute. The real gold mine is the ground-floor room that the chute empties into, accessible by one of the elevators. This is where, around graduation each year, y ... Read full article.