"Stealing" out of rubbish bins/skips

stevenr86

almost right here...the Theft Act does say...
1.--
(1) A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and 'thief' and 'steal' shall be construed accordingly

but there are many elements to theft. break it down and see...dishonesty is the first 'mens rea' element meaning it is the mental act of committing a crime...you need both metal elements and physical elements (actus reus) to commit a crime. to be dishonest you need full fill the Gosh test (R v Gosh) in which it must be:according to the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people what was done was dishonest... If it was dishonest... then the jury must consider whether the defendant himself must have realised that what he was doing was by those standards dishonest" a subjective and objective test...so if you feel that most people would take and keep say a TV from a council skip then you would not be guilty of the offense as the Crown would need to prove the dishonest mens rea element of the offence as well as the other parts...appropriates property belonging to another or as its known "making that what is not yours, yours by assuming rights over it" with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it, here intention is again a mens rea element that requires the crown to prove you had no intention of taking the TV back (say you planned to take it back to the skip...you had NO intention of keeping it) but dont bog down on the "he put it in the skip so didnt want it" in the case of Woodman (1974) if it is genuinely abandoned it has no owner but council skips and transfer sites are different-the council owns the sit and all on it!

also bear in mind S5 of the theft act "Property shall be regarded as belonging to any person having possession or control of it, or having in it any proprietary right or interest (not being an equitable interest arising only from an agreement to transfer or grant an interest"
which means that you can steal your own rubbish (in theory) as the waste carrier has the right of ownership while transporting it.

so in summery- you can argue no dishonesty (mens rea element) "i did not think the ordinary man would think i was doing wrong so i did no believe i was dishonest subjectively or objectively" or you had every intention of returning it to the skip (undamaged)

but bear in mind that you can be prosecuted for appropriation of property in a skip as they own that property until they give clear notice to its abandonment.

consent is a big one too. if you ask the skip owner or property owner "can i have that TV" and he says "yes take it" but you take more than the TV then the above rules apply

also i have heard the line "yes but i went to the skip and put in 3 things and took 3 out" remember- if i take a £5 note from you and then try to give a different £5 note back its still theft...it has to be the same item "...permanently deprive [of that exact item]..." not an identical item it has to the same item. i hope this helps!

CKhalvashi

s_b wrote: »

we are looking for old bricks at the moment but there is no way we would not knock on the door and ask permission before we took any out of someones skip
maybe i was brought up in a world where politeness made the man?

IMO, if sOmeone has thrown it (such as in a bin/skip), then theft shouldn't apply.

I've had bikes, double glazed windows and even a cooker from a skip, all given to a homeless project I work with and I've made no profit from this.

I did have the decency to ask on occasions beforehand, though!

CK

prowla

I once picked up a computer out of a skip.
As far as I was concerned, the owner had discarded it and I was doing the skip company a favour by reducing their costs in transporting it to a tip.
I nabbed a couple of pieces off it and then gave it away on freegle.

BWP-Whysoserious

All I can say is another man's rubbish is another man's treasure (if that makes sense).

duchy

Our council does one free pick up of three large items a year (more than one a year is £12). As fast as I was putting items out -they were vanishing I ended up getting rid of a lot more junk than I expected to as I replaced one item after another. No-one asked for the TV's remote though LOL

I'd far rather someone took stuff rather than it ended up at the dump

gocurlygirl

gordonoga wrote: »

I am concerned about the vans that tour the streets and take stuff out of skips for a living. What do they do with anything they find they do not want? Do they (a) put it back in the skip the next day, or (b) dispose of it legally (as trade waste which which will cost them at the local dump) or (c) do they flytip illegally it for free? They could also take things in front gardens (not in skips) which are not meant to be taken under the guise of their van being accepted to be on the streets. This is where lack of control can take us and why all such carriers are required to have a licence and have their vehicle registered with the Environment Agency, but do they? We have laws against such illegal activity (which is there to minimise waste, or make people pay to dump waste) but it is so difficult to enforce them.

This has been a problem near us-I work shifts and often see them come around 3-4 times a day-especially when items are in gardens nearby.Surprise- lawn mower,and garden furniture went missing from our small street and bikes from the next.while all "any old iron" may not be dishonest there are theives out there:(

ash28

prowla wrote: »

I once picked up a computer out of a skip.
As far as I was concerned, the owner had discarded it and I was doing the skip company a favour by reducing their costs in transporting it to a tip.
I nabbed a couple of pieces off it and then gave it away on freegle.

That's the trouble though - as far as you were concerned........but as far as the law is concerned stuff in skips, whether the skip is on business premises or residential property or on the road - still belongs to the owner of the stuff and that it hasn't been abandoned. It has a rightful owner and if you take it without permission, technically you are permanently depriving the owner of their goods.

You should really ask permission before you take stuff - they may have plans for some of it - how do you know they don't?

There have been a couple of prosecutions brought by Tesco (I know) against people taking food from their bins.

This is one of them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1392951/Tesco-bin-food-raid-woman-admits-handling-stolen-goods.html

I won't go into what I think of Tesco.

We hired a large skip last year prior to a house move and it was kept in the garden....plenty of people knocked and asked if they could take stuff and I had absolutely no problem with that. I did have issues with people just coming into the garden and helping themselves.

Especially the one's who stole the cover for the skip.

stevebeechmount59

I suppose it is always best to ask before raiding a skip for an item. However, I know of someone who did just that for a set of old chairs. I think the woman who had hired the skip thought they might be valuable and refused permission saying they had been placed in the skip by mistake. I suppose she figured that if someone was showing an interest in the chairs they might just be valuable. As I say, I accept you should ask before removing items from a skip, but there is always the chance it can backfire on an honest person sometimes.

Interestingly, I recall an episode of Flog It on BBC2, when a woman salvaged two full albums of valuable collectable postcards - although she didn't know they were valuable at the time. There must have been well over a hundred postcards in both of the albums which turned out be worth many thousands of pounds when they went up for auction!

Reading through this thread, I also wondered who is liable if someone is injured whilst rooting through a skip placed on the road outside a house?

Also, what if an item that has been dislodged by someone rooting through a skip and left precariously falls onto a member of the public passing by and injuring them or a passing vehicle? Who is liable in that case?

Daniyelllx

As a general rule, you should ask permission to take from skips or bins to be safe.

You should never take from council wheelie bins as technically it does belong to the council and not the user of the bin. If you're unlucky and get caught and charged, it's very likely you'll be fined, regardless of whether or not they actually want the contents.

The Theft laws can be quite silly in places, but it is for a good reason. It does not generally matter if the owner wants what you take, but if you do not ask, it's very likely you'll be considered dishonest and therefore liable.

The dishonesty section of theft rules that if you do not fit any of the following criteria, you are dishonest.

S.2.1(a) A Right in Law - If you do not honestly believe that you have a legal right to the property, you are dishonest.

S.2.1(b) Consent - If you do not believe that you have the consent of the owner, you are dishonest.

S.2.1(c) Reasonable Steps - If you have not taken what the courts believe to be reasonable steps, you are dishonest. The court's view of "reasonable" is also much higher than an average person.

Another test is present (Ghosh 1982) but is not needed in most cases.

mrsyardbroom

Ask the person who's chucking the stuff out if you can have it. When our office was refurbished the staff asked if they could have any useful bits out of the skip. The boss gave us the nod and as fast as the skip filled up it was emptied again by the office workers. One man had several sheets of plasterboard which he used to line a shed where his cat slept! All the wood went straight away and the wire and pipe came in useful as well. In the end the builders stopped using the skip. They just put everything on the ground outside and let the "skip rats" swarm all over it. It was far better than taking it to a landfill site and loads of stuff got recycled.
People used to hang about our local dump so that they could pick up stuff that was being thrown away. Most of it ended up at boot sales. The men who ran the dump used to make a small charge for the items that were taken. They actually gave me a beautiful set of glasses that were perfect and they ended up as a raffle prize. Sadly this situation no longer exists.
Another source of freebies is freecycle. If someone advertises something through this media though you would have to make it clear that you want the goods for resale.