DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.

Carter Stevens has built an unlikely six figure venture by searching dumpsters for discarded goods, cleaning his finds and selling them online. Documents reviewed by CNBC Make It show that he generated roughly $140,000 in total sales between September 2025 and September 2026.

The 31 year old works primarily around office parks and luxury condominiums near Nashville, Tennessee. Since beginning in March 2024, Stevens says he has recovered handcrafted Persian rugs, expensive office chairs and samurai swords.

Even his shipping materials can come from the trash. Stevens says he finds enough cardboard boxes and packing tape that he avoids paying for those supplies approximately “90% of the time.”

“The amount of waste in this country that you’ll find is unbelievable. We throw so much stuff out,” says Stevens, 31. His operation turns at least some of that waste into inventory with almost no acquisition cost.

Stevens sometimes asks buildings for permission to search their trash, presenting himself as a junk removal service. Other trips involve sorting through rubbish and rotting food while watching for security guards and “no trespassing” signs, though he says he leaves when an owner or guard tells him to go.

His financial turnaround followed years of addiction and poor spending decisions. Stevens says he was approximately $12,000 in debt when he “stumbled into” dumpster diving, despite growing up in an affluent household.

“I dug myself out of a hole. I built up my savings. I really did much more than I thought was possible,” says Stevens. He nevertheless questions whether the level of annual sales he achieved can be sustained.

Stevens is a Nashville native whose father is a country and gospel music producer who has won five Grammy Awards and worked with Blake Shelton and Carrie Underwood. Stevens says an addiction to prescription Adderall contributed to his decision to leave college during his senior year in 2018.

Without a degree, Stevens struggled to secure full time employment and began searching thrift stores and Goodwill racks for vintage clothing to resell on eBay. He says YouTube influencer Rick Senko inspired him, but Stevens’ own returns remained inconsistent and his profits often went toward drugs or luxury purchases.

His parents paid for rehabilitation in 2021, helping him “quit doing the hard drugs,” he says. Yet his spending continued, including a $1,200 pair of Christian Dior Birkenstock sandals, an 85 inch television and a $30,000 down payment on a Mercedes-AMG sedan he later lost because he could not afford the total cost.

By June 2023, Stevens could not pay rent and moved into a rented storage unit until security removed him. He then lived in his Nissan Sentra for three weeks, an experience he says forced him to confront his “reckless” spending habits.

A cousin lent him money for an apartment in October 2023, and Stevens began budgeting so his resale income could cover rent and basic expenses. Five months later, he discovered black Nike Air Force Ones beside a gas station pump, sanitized them and sold them online for $35.

“That was the first time I had ever found something that was trash and sold it and made a little bit of money,” says Stevens. He kept searching because, as he puts it, “I never stopped finding good stuff in these dumpsters.”

His biggest haul consisted of 190 discarded Steelcase office chairs, each worth more than $1,000 when new. Using a used pickup truck and a trailer he built himself, Stevens removed the chairs and sold most through bulk Facebook Marketplace transactions for $17,000, then generated another $10,600 from individual sales.

Stevens rents a storage unit for $400 a month and tries to find roughly one valuable haul each month. He favors office dumpsters without food waste and says corporate downsizing can produce profitable inventory, including one discovery of 120 discarded standing desks.

Luxury apartment buildings have yielded West Elm furniture, iPads, electronics and working power tools. “Almost every piece of furniture in my apartment came from a dumpster,” says Stevens.

The business remains unpredictable, with most revenue coming from large discoveries during his five strongest months. “I got really lucky earlier this year and I made a ton of money. I’m not acting like this is something I could do every year,” he says.

Stevens now saves as much as possible and regularly talks himself out of unnecessary purchases. He is also studying real estate wholesaling as a potentially more secure source of income, but the possibility of another discarded treasure keeps pulling him back.

“I don’t see myself ever turning down a good looking dumpster,” says Stevens. “I have found so much cool stuff that I feel like I’ll always be curious about what’s in that dumpster.”

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.