Charles “Chuck” Berry can’t figure out why his Japanese customers want to buy old cameras and discarded coffeepots. Not only will they pay $40 for a discarded Polaroid Land Camera, but they will gleefully pony up the shipping costs for the around-the-world trip.

What do they do with the old coffeepots? “Beats me,” says the 51-year-old international dealer in recyclables. Berry is a third-generation dump picker who virtually lives on the items discarded at the four-town Midcoast Recycling Center in Rockport and his favorite spot, the Swap Shop, also at the dump.

The volunteer-operated shop is an old cabin where residents drop off anything a little too good for the trash pile, thereby decreasing the trash stream, the annual cost of running the dump and their own tax bill.

Berry wants to expand the Swap Shop.

It’s no wonder.

He has practically furnished his Camden house with items from the dump. He burns trash wood in a dump stove to keep warm. He stands on a floor made of discarded wood. His stove and his microwave came from the dump, along with the toilet, kitchen sink and bathtub. He confesses that he bought his computer but found a monitor and the printer at the dump. When the printer runs out of ink, he does not buy an expensive cartridge replacement. He goes to the dump and finds another free printer.

Berry draws the line at his own coffeepot, though. He went out and bought a new one. “I want to know what has gone through there before I make coffee in it,” he said. His microwave was found at the dump still in its unopened package, sales slip and all.

Although he was born in Caribou, Berry came to Camden as fast as he could, at about 3 months. Even when he was a student in Camden schools, he started selling scrap metals, lead and batteries to a Rockland junk dealer. Now, he is much more sophisticated.

With the aid of the Internet, Berry sells all over the world. “The Internet has opened up major markets for junk. I use eBay and other auction sites,” he says. He comes by the activity naturally.

“My grandfather had a system in the 1930s. He would take a barrel of fish from the coast and swap the fish upcountry for potatoes and turnip. We were never hungry, and while other families were just getting by, my family was feasting,” Berry said.

His father, Freeman Berry, worked in the town mills and volunteered as a firefighter but stayed away from the dump. “Maybe he was too smart,” muses Berry, sitting in his cluttered kitchen, heated by dump wood.

Berry’s roots are deep in Camden. He and his grandfather walked across the street during the 1959 filming of “Peyton Place,” got into the classic film, and he has a postcard to prove it. That one is not for sale.

Berry volunteers at the Swap Shop, with other volunteers, to save money for the taxpayers. “The idea is to recycle anything you can,” he explains. “If more people left more items at the shop, the dump wouldn’t cost as much. I would like to see this dump used for as long as possible, with more recycling. But I am in it for the profit.”

The publicly owned Midcoast Solid Waste Corp. transfer station in Rockport, which serves Camden, Rockport, Hope and Lincolnville, shipped out roughly 8,537 tons of trash to be incinerated in Orrington by the Penobscot Energy Recovery Corp. last year, at a cost of $1.65 million. Another 2,239 tons were shipped out as recyclables, saving $75 per ton – $168,000- in trucking and incineration fees, according to the Camden town report.

“Obviously, recycling is the right thing to do,” said Midcoast Solid Waste Corp. executive director Bob Peabody. While the market for recyclables fluctuates wildly, the process saves area taxpayers money by decreasing the waste stream to Orrington and reducing the $1-per-bag cost at the facility. Peabody will meet with the Swap Shop volunteers later this month to discuss expansion of the operation.

“That is a community service when people use it as they should,” Peabody said. “We all waste a lot of material. Some people throw away things with a useful life. Those who cannot afford sometimes make good use of these items.”

An expansion of the Swap Shop could only help in further reducing costs, Berry says. He estimates that he takes at least a half-ton of lead out of the four-town transfer station each year. He also pulls 20,000 pounds of aluminum and copper per year, along with coins, brass, gold, silver, pewter, platinum and other materials from the waste pile.

Berry makes at least one, sometimes two visits to the Swap Shop every day. The adage that one man’s trash is another’s treasure is in force here. The useful, discarded items are endless.

“I do very well with books. I like religious books, books out of date. I get the occasional copy signed by the author,” he relates. The best find was a DuPont paint book with the color schemes of all cars from 1930 to 1950. “It was worth about $2,000. I sold it a page at a time on the Internet,” he said. Classic cars collectors gratefully paid $10 to $20 a page for the original formulas for paint on their old vehicles.

But his favorite “finds” are toys. He found a classic toy car, a replica of the 1938 LaSalle with a trailer that would bring about $500 on the Internet, if Berry ever decided to part with it. “Someone just threw this out,” he says shaking his head. He will keep that one.

Bathtubs are always good moneymakers. Berry actually paid for one at a lawn sale, reluctantly taking $25 from his pocket. “An antique dealer will pay six times that much,” he notes with a wink. He took an old Honda motorcycle off the junk pile, cut it up and made about $100.

Automobile number plates are always popular, with antique porcelain plates bringing up to $40. Old vanity plates, police plates and Purple Heart plates are also in demand.

“Some people will buy anything,” Berry says. He once sold some authentically smelly discarded lobster bait bags to a Nebraska buyer for $12. Lobster buoys, no matter how damaged, will always sell, he says. “If you can get five or six together, different colors, you can get $40 for them. I guess it reminds people of the time they spent in Maine.”

His main business is the routine collection of copper and brass, which now bring 40-50 cents a pound. There are piles of metal scattered around his house. “I have seen it up to $2 a pound. I don’t think we will see that again but I am waiting for it to get back to 80 or 90 cents a pound,” he says. He also specializes in collecting aluminum from discarded storm windows, beach chairs, frying pans, roof flashing and outdoor cooking grills.

“Aluminum brings about 30 to 40 cents a pound. It has been quite a bit higher,” he says. While some dump pickers make a fortune off furniture, Berry leaves the tables and chairs alone. But old radios are very popular and profitable.

Lately, he has been doing very well with old blacksmith’s forges. A few generations ago each family farm had forges to fashion horseshoes and other implements “They are real hot now. Even broken, they will bring $75-$200.” People want the historic items so badly that they don’t blink at the added cost of $30 or $40 for the UPS shipment.

Like most business, the junk industry goes through cycles and is affected by news, history and sudden deaths.

“After 9-11, firefighter plates were bringing very serious money in any condition. After the Super Bowl, Patriots glasses, helmets and other gear sold well. The ones with the old logo [Flying Elvis] brought the most money.”

Berry will lower himself to hit a few lawn sales every summer, but the Swap Shop is better. It is free. “Plus, most things at the lawn sales end up in the dump a few days later,” he says.

The death of Red Sox legend Ted Williams inflated previously worthless Sears, Roebuck and Co. outboard motors to $50 apiece, because they had the Hall of Famer’s name on them. One person drove all the way from New York to buy one of the motors.

Marketing is also crucial. “It would be difficult to sell a single coffeepot. They are so plentiful that they sell for 25 or 50 cents at a lawn sale. But if you can collect about eight of the discarded urns, they will bring $40 on the Internet,” he says.

One of the most interesting items Berry has rescued from the junk pile was a ship’s log that held several items that belonged to a sister of famed Camden poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. The log was sold to a college professor and Millay fan for $100.

One day, Berry found some discarded papier-mache masks at the Swap Shop. He offered them on the Internet and they were snatched up by a St. Louis college professor who was convinced they were the work of a famous mask maker, Doane. “I had them valued by an appraiser. I would hate to say what I sold them for. I can’t give away all my sales.

“I have made some monster hits at lawn sales, mostly jewelry. I have found some 14-karat gold, some Sterling silver, mostly odds and ends. My rule is that I have to make at least 10 times what I pay for things at a lawn sale. Otherwise I don’t buy them. Most of the time I can do it. ”

Berry delivers newspapers part-time to supplement his dump income. But most of his income comes from the Swap Shop. “I like to go down there first thing in the morning. You never know what is going to be there. Every day it’s like Christmas morning. I love recycling, but I am no tree hugger. I am in it for the profit,” he says.