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Where Unclaimed Baggage Goes to Die (And Live Again)

Ever lose your luggage on a flight and wonder what happens to bags that never get reunited with their woeful owners?

Well, a good deal of it ends up in Scottsboro, Alabama at a massive thrift store called the Unclaimed Baggage Center. UBC buys unclaimed luggage from airlines in bulk, to the tune of 7,000 new items a day (that's a lot of lost bags!) Then everything is sold to the public out of their Alabama warehouse, and we do mean everything. Clothes, cameras, iPods, exotic souvenirs, prescription eyeglasses, and of course the bags themselves.

They've also got a museum where they put aside the stuff found in lost bags that's just too good to sell—for example, a life-size version of the creepy Hoggle puppet from the movie Labyrinth and a slew of 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts. Seems like those could have been reunited with their rightful owners, but oh well, finders keepers.

Related Stories:
· Unclaimed Baggage Center [Official Site]
· US Air Eats Luggage For Breakfast [Jaunted]
· Shopping coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: J-Rad]