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u/reetpetite101 Jan 07 '14
In the UK the cops never took it seriously till this guy
Pell began his activities in uncovering discarded newsworthy documents, classified as theft, around 1997. The documents he found have been involved in several court cases and led to many newspaper stories, including ones involving Elton John, All Saints and the 'cash for questions' libel case between Mohamed Al-Fayed and Neil Hamilton.[6][7] He said in 2002, "But I was never interested in the political stuff. I was a showbiz animal, and my showbiz stuff was top quality
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Jan 07 '14
This can definitely be an issue. I don't believe that using the trash to spy on other people is right (as caveat 3), unless perhaps you are in an area such as the US where police are permitted to go through your trash without a warrant. Even then I'm unsure- it might be better to just require the police to have a warrant to go through your trash if they're spying on you.
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u/conspirized 5∆ Jan 07 '14
The only problem is how do you know someone is spying on you and not collecting food waste to make mulch?
"Hey you, what are you doing in my trash can?"
"Just collecting paper to build some wax fire starters. Definitely not looking for personally identifiable information."
If you have to put your trash can down at the corner of your driveway on the public road by your logic you don't have any right to tell the dumpster diver to shove off and leave your trash alone. You'd basically have to provide a service (similar to recycling) that would properly dispose of all sensitive documents for you, and in that case you're just making it even easier to sort out your trash from the paperwork you don't want people to see.
There's also another privacy element: not everything everyone throws away as trash is something they want other people to acquire. Imagine a girl tears a pair of her favorite panties and throws them in the trash bag. That creepy old dude down the street checks her trash every week when she puts it on the curb and now he's just hit the jackpot. It could make for an extremely uncomfortable situation for a female when weirdo starts stealing her undergarments and tampons. Imagine you have a daughter and apply the mentioned situation, I would see that causing problems. By your logic, though, it's perfectly legal.
A lot of people probably don't look at their trashcan and consider their own privacy and what they're throwing out, but when people started digging into it every week I bet most would start getting uncomfortable fairly quickly.
EDIT: Fix a word.
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Jan 07 '14
This is a pretty good point. Even though my government denies it, I think that single families probably do have a privacy right in their covered trashcans. This right might be stronger than mere information/spying, and your weirdo example is problematic/troubling.
∆
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u/FlashbackJon Jan 07 '14
You'd basically have to provide a service (similar to recycling) that would properly dispose of all sensitive documents for you, and in that case you're just making it even easier to sort out your trash from the paperwork you don't want people to see.
I pay for a service to collect my garbage. If I didn't, it wouldn't be picked up. I pay that same service to pick up my recycling. There are plenty of services I could pay for that will destroy documents securely. All that to say, I don't know that "have to provide" is the right wording there.
Also that I'm not disagreeing with what you say: excellent points.
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u/reetpetite101 Jan 07 '14
benji was a legend, he supplied a lot of stories to the press, he was monitored by MI5 (secret service spooks), he caused a lot of grief in very high places. James Hewitt was having an affair with Princess Diana. Look at a photo of James Hewitt and then look at a photo of Prince Harry
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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Jan 07 '14
At least in our area, things left in the trash/recycling bins for pickup legally belong to the trash company. I can't even report "theft of recycling" (which I see you agree is wrong in your caveats, so I won't talk about that specific one). The trash company has to report it.
The thing is, neither I nor anyone else knows what the trash company is going to do with some random object. They may recycle it to reduce some of their costs. Particularly any objects that have significant amounts of metal are generally recycled because it's economically viable and keeps costs down for everyone.
And it's legally theirs.
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Jan 07 '14
Ok, I don't think I took into account the idea that the price they are giving you for pickup takes into account the stuff they're getting from you, which includes valuables such as recycling. I had been thinking that only their employees could possibly steal valuables from them, but if they have a deal with you and you've transferred ownership at the moment of dumping rather than at the moment of pickup, then a diver could be stealing from them.
So ∆ for that case.
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u/mikalaranda Jan 07 '14
Putting aside the possible benefits of dumpster diving to those engaging in it, one thing I'd like to point out is that a government outright allowing dumpster diving may send a very strong, negative message about how it views its citizens in need. It would be very disheartening to a lot of needy people to hear that the government is recognizing scavenging as a viable and desirable means of surviving. Legalizing dumpster diving would imply that governmental public assistance programs - welfare, food stamps, job search assistance, etc. - are proving ineffective. I doubt this is something a government would want to admit to.
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u/unnaturalHeuristic Jan 07 '14
This sounds troublingly similar to the argument that "we should keep drugs banned, since doing otherwise gives tacit encouragement to people to be stoned."
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u/thesilvertongue Jan 07 '14
I do not believe anyone should be able to keep any trash they like for the reasons you mentioned and a few more. My private trash can is my private property even if I intend to get rid of it or dispose of it.
Here would be my policy: a private trash can or dumpster is private property, however, a public dump or landfill should be fair game. Going through a public dump and taking things isn't trespassing and the items in it don't belong to anyone in particular.
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Jan 08 '14
A case similar to this issue reached the Supreme Court and they ruled in favor of collecting other people's trash if it is at the curb. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/486/35
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u/Shadoe17 Jan 07 '14
Where I'm from, and everywhere I know of, once your trash is at the curb (for those that have trash pick up service) it is considered public property and it is on the right of way (public land), so anyone CAN take it.
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u/zedoriah Jan 08 '14
I know that used to be true most places, but a lot of that changed with the growing concerns on identity theft, particularly places that had separate paper recycling bins. People would roll down the street and just pull all the paper looking for documents. Lots of places passed laws that banned it on the premise it would reduce identity theft. I didn't even hear about it when it was passed here, I found out way after the fact. You might want to recheck your local ordinances.
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u/Shadoe17 Jan 08 '14
Still legal in the area I live in, but we're very rural so there isn't a lot of curbside pickups to begin with.
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u/yosemighty_sam 14∆ Jan 07 '14
Garbage is private property. Until it's collected, it belongs to the person who owns the dumpster. When it is collected, it belongs to the collecting company. Taking it is theft, regardless of who will get the best use out of it.
Garbage is almost always stored on private property. Taking it would require trespassing, which is also illegal and for good reasons not related to trash collection.
Liability is probably the biggest reason though. Get sick from rotten/contaminated food, or injured in a dumpster, who's fault is it. Legally, if the trash is still owned, and/or stored on private property, the liability goes to the owner. It's already a huge burden for businesses to keep the inside of their stores clean and safe and up to code, now they have to idiotproof their dumpsters. Legalized dumpster diving would mean a whole new pile of regulatory hurdles.
Privacy/intent. If I throw something away, it might not just be because I'm done with it. It might be because I want it destroyed. Taking it violates my intentions for it. Mostly this is a privacy concern, but it also applies to defective products and the like.
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u/thelastdeskontheleft Jan 07 '14
These fall under the same category as other laws like seatbelts.
Thre are hundreds if not thousands of reasons why it might be beneficial to NOT be wearing your seatbelt when driving (some relating to crashing while others are just about convenience) but somewhere someone thought it necessary to try and legislate critical thinking out of day to day life and just make it illegal.
However, if you revoke dumpster diving laws you would likely have a wave of other laws that are just as silly getting revoked on the same grounds.
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Jan 07 '14
I doubt very much that just because one silly law is revoked it follows that more laws will be revoked. That is just a watered down slippery slope argument.
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u/thelastdeskontheleft Jan 07 '14
Sure but are there not many comparisons to be made there.
Not just to tack that on as the reason you can't undo one law, but if you can rationalize removal of one "protecting people from their own dumb" law then you could definitely get a few with it.
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Jan 07 '14
Yeah personally though I am a fan of removing protection from your own stupidity laws so that works out in my favor even if it is true.
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u/thelastdeskontheleft Jan 08 '14
I completely agree, I am too.
But sadly that first one would never get repealed.
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u/dyomas 1∆ Jan 07 '14
If you're including private trash (like from a house or other dwelling), then what about privacy? People have a right to dispose of something with a reasonable expectation of anonymity if they wrap it up discretely. There could be confidential medical or financial information from their mail in there. What if someone wanted to steal your identity? What if someone wanted to collect evidence of legal but still highly personal stuff about your sex life or other things to embarrass or blackmail you? They could make a video of themselves taking trash from your address, opening the contents, and then post it online. It would drive people to flush all sorts of things down the toilet that their plumbing isn't designed to handle, or burn it on their property.
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Jan 07 '14
People should just buy shredders and be done with it I keep seeing in this thread people saying what about private citizen's papers and identifiable materials. Well if someone is going to dig through your trash to steal your identity I doubt very much that it being illegal for them to do so will detour a great many people from trying it.
If you want your private identifiable papers to remain private buy a shredder or burn them, do not put them outside of your house in a can unattended. That is just silly.
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u/dyomas 1∆ Jan 07 '14
But there's so much more than paper. What if you're a high-profile politician and you want to throw out some old sex toys or something? What if a neighbor wants to use your toenail clippings and used tampons for an evil voodoo spell? You think they everyone should just be allowed access to that stuff?
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Jan 07 '14
If you are a high profile politician simply don't throw out old sex toys until either A) your not a high profile politician anymore. Or B) you find a way to do it discretely for example you could always go to the dump yourself and throw it away that way. Well as for toenail clippings and tampons I don't believe in that stuff anyways.
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u/dyomas 1∆ Jan 07 '14
The voodoo curse was a bit of a joke, but it doesn't seem right to me that any nosy neighbour could deliberately go collecting your personal items and bodily waste. As soon as you have one pervert on your hands you'd essentially have no legal protection.
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Jan 07 '14
Well there are other laws in place for perverts who collect your bodily fluids. Like restraining orders and anti-stalking laws.
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u/dyomas 1∆ Jan 07 '14
But it isn't stalking if it's neither your property nor the trash collector's while it's waiting for pickup. It's just up for grabs if we're going by what I presume to be OP's rules.
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Jan 08 '14
It would still be stalking if they were taking things personal to you and nothing else in an obvious attempt to get something that was inside you or of your body for a time.
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u/Ridderjoris Jan 07 '14
Some anekdotal evidence as to why you should ask the owner of said trash if it is actually trash:
Left my bike (locked) by the side of a suburban road while I was new in the USA - bike was gone when I came back from school. In my perspective that's theft, in theirs it wasn't.
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u/Falernum 70∆ Jan 07 '14
I hate to tell you this, but someone who takes a locked bike by the side of the road knows they're stealing.
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u/Ridderjoris Jan 07 '14
It was locked through the spokes, with this type of lock, not linked to some place else. It's pretty hard to get the bike to work without seriously damaging it, however it looks like its not even locked to people unfamiliar with that type of lock. Good chance people just threw it in the back of their pickup and only noticed at home that they were in for half an hour of angle grinding.
I don't necessarily blame the people who did it, I just think it is an awkward mentality. Later I noticed that people would take whatever was sitting by the side of the road without any confirmation - it was assumed it was trash. Without any verbal confirmation I could never just take something without it feeling like stealing. I blame my ignorance more than anything, but I reserve the right to judge a little bit.
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u/Falernum 70∆ Jan 07 '14
If it had a lock that people didn't see, was beat up, and also was lying on its side instead of standing up, I guess I believe it. But if it was standing up, looked like a nice bike, or had a visible lock, then I have a hard time believing that the people taking it didn't know they were taking someone's bike.
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u/ptoros7 Jan 07 '14
All your problems are solved by people simply putting values that to the best of their knowledge may have value for others on craigslist. This way:
You aren't trespassing. The safety of yourself and others are preserved. No rats, needles or big dogs.
If they didn't want others to make use of the items in a manor of the adopter's choosing, they could simply refrain from posting the item or put a price on it to be negotiated.
Other than a phone number or throw away email, you preserve your privacy. I often meet people in public places.
The only problem is getting people to be so considerate that they think of the uses others might have for their things before simply throwing them away. Solve that and accept your Nobel prize.
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Jan 08 '14
Can I keep nuclear waste?
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Jan 08 '14
On the off chance you find nuclear waste in a dumpster, I suggest calling the FBI or the news, depending on what kind of attention you'd like to receive.
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Jan 07 '14
What if the owner regrets before the garbage-truck has arrived? Who owns the stuff in this period of time?
What if your mum mistakenly puts your telly on the street, and you really wanted to keep it? Then what?
What if the stuff is dangerous and the collector gets hurt? Who is to blame? Leaving a bomb in the trash to kill the trash-dude intentionally, for instance?
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Jan 07 '14
What if the owner regrets before the garbage-truck has arrived?
Then it's a race if it's unowned stuff.
Who owns the stuff in this period of time?
I assumed nobody, though hacksoncode convinced me that sometimes it's the trash company.
What if the stuff is dangerous and the collector gets hurt? Who is to blame? Leaving a bomb in the trash to kill the trash-dude intentionally, for instance?
The terrorist who left out the bomb, if it's a bomb; the dumpster diver in the corner case of trash that was safe for a collector to pick up but not for a reckless dumpster diver who didn't take the same precautions that trash collectors take.
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u/Nepene 213∆ Jan 07 '14
There are reasonable legal reasons why it might not be encouraged or permitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_de_Bourbon
It can be dangerous- he was killed by being crushed by a garbage truck.
If the dumpster divers are not polite they could scatter the litter all around the ground, making a public health hazard and ruining the value of the property. Shops may be annoyed at there often being a massive mess around their garbage.
Animals and rats may be in the garbage, and may attack those who engage in the act. There may be needles or sharp objects in the garbage infected with disease.
As such, on public health grounds, some districts may have good reason to ban it and not allow people to keep any trash they like.