Ignoramus5827 wrote:

I visited SK Hand Tool factory in Chicago. It is a surprisingly big
complex of large, old, slightly mysterious, industrial buildings. I
was there to pick up a card cabinet.

What I saw there was forklifts that moved metal crates full of tools
(sockets, socket extensions, wrenches, cabinets etc) and dumped them
in a big metal dumpster. Turns out that the new owner (Ideal
Industries) that bought assets of bankrupt SK tools, does not want
those goods and decided to scrap them. They are declining all
offers to buy that stuff.

The manager of SK tool personally accompanies the dumpster to Gary,
Indiana, to make sure that the tools are all dumped into the scrap
furnace and not pilfered on the way.

Pretty much everyone over there is shocked at this. I was, too. It
reminded of of the Soviet Union, where that sort of waste abounded and
"not giving a ****" was the new religion. The only difference was that
in the Soviet Union, all that stuff would certainly be stolen there,
and here I am sure that everyone honestly played their part and
everything that was supposed to be destroyed, would be destroyed.

When I was in the USAF, every year at budget time, we had to throw away
thousands of dollars' worth of spare parts, just so they could order new
and not lose their budget allocation for the next year.

It was a virtual goldmine for hobbyists. ;-) The boss would say, "All this
stuff has to go," but looked the other way when you caught stuff on the
way to the dumpster. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich