Dumptique and Other Treasures

On the Cape and Islands, residents have a unique relationship with their town landfills, often boasting about them the way one might talk about a new car, pet, or a relative. Many a dresser has been pulled from the wood bin, or a roll of copper wire salvaged from the metal pile and old lawn mowers brought back to life from the appliance heap.

It fits in with our New England thrift to find and fix and to talk about salvaging something rather than buying something new.

Most Cape Cod towns have the added feature of “swap shack” at their dump, a place where residents either bring or take a household item. On Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, the swap shacks have names, for instance, Dumptique on West Tisbury, and the Madaket Mall on Nantucket.

Many people, myself included, have furnished their entire homes with treasures found at the swap shacks. Looking around my own home, I take great pride in the crystal chandelier, oil paintings, tables, hooked rugs and perhaps my greatest find—my husband—at the Madaket dump. Our children learned to ride bikes, read books and sail boats found at the landfills on Nantucket and Cape Cod.

For a summer tourist town in the middle of winter, where most coffee shops and restaurants are boarded up, the dump is the community hub. While I have never seen anyone eat a sandwich at the landfill, I have seen folks sit in their parked trucks and pour coffee from a thermos, while chatting with their window rolled down to the person in the next truck. This is called “Cape Cod Hospitality.”

Recently, we moved from the Cape to a town 12 miles outside of Boston. After we unpacked, I needed to pick up a few things at the dump, a towel rack, hamper and bookcase. That is when I found out that this town does not have a dump or a landfill, but a transfer station that is closed to the public. Oh, civilization!