The Junk Barge Captain's code (draft one, comments welcomed)

1. Never refuse anything free that's physically easy to store and physically easy to throw away.
   
2. Never accept anything that'll get you in trouble with the law or with Mrs. Captain.
   
3. Give freely: give to your thrifty friends, charities, thrift stores, and outfits like Freecycle. To do this, you'll need to know what they need, and be aware of what and how they can accept gifts. Fine-tune your antenna to find needs and fill them.
   
4. Never rent a storage space. When something comes in, something else should go out.
   
5. Try to figure out what you've got before you throw it away. Try not to buy anything you don't understand.
   
6. Know what things are worth. This includes your living space and time.
   
7. Once a piece of junk doesn't make you happy, get rid of it. People are not junk, so you're out of luck there.
   
8. Sell what you can, recycle whenever possible, and throw trash away.
9. No amount of what you don't want will make you content.
   
10. Ultimately, it's not about junk at all.