[chrisseaton]

> there is a place in our apartment complex where we place electronic rubbish and just two days ago i noticed a tablet with a destroyed screen ... i popped it open and everything inside looked pristine so i bought a new screen for some ~20$ and am now waiting on it to arrive

Note that taking someone's rubbish without permission is considered theft in the UK (there is precedent). If you sell it it's even worse because it's handling stolen goods.

[jjeaff]

In the US, it is legal to take garbage. And there is precedent for that as well. Although there can be trespassing issues if you don't have permission to be there. (like digging through a private dumpster at a business).

[lloydde]

Is there an Internet law that says that for every reasonable rule there will be one US jurisdiction where it doesn’t apply?

My understanding is that in almost all jurisdictions in USA possession end when the trash is moved to the curb, put in public space. I remember reading at some point that at least in some part of Texas possession is transferred from the individual to the trash collection agency. This was interesting to me from privacy/search warrant perspective.

[justifier]

ha! depressing

though i doubt the people i was living with who would break into abandoned buildings to establish residence are all that too concerned with your rubbish 'theft' precedent

the tablet salvage was in the states and unfortunately i'd be unsurprised if there are equally uncharitable precedent here as well

.. as an aside, i would be interested in reading your referenced precedent, i agree going through someone's bin to get personal info or to file false credit card offers on their behalf should be illegal, but i'd be interested to read the ruling if it is literally a broken electronics salvage

[chrisseaton]

I think it's this way so that people can't steal things and say 'oh I thought it was rubbish'.

[justifier]

sure, got a link though?

[chrisseaton]

This talks about some of the multiple precedents that have been reinforcing this for centuries.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13037808

[justifier]

precedent is a court document

you linked to an article pretrial

the person in the article took food from a bin stead ewaste

i tried to find a followup article or court decision but was unable

i did find a similar article from iceland where people were charged under an 1824 vagrancy act which was ruled unworthy of prosecution(o)

your linked case reads like a power tripping manager to me

this practice was part of the squat culture as well: every few days we would do a 'skip hop'.. skip being the term for a large trash bin.. we'd go to grocery stores who were legally bound to throw away food that expired that day at the end of the day as well as forbidden from giving away 'rotten' food, so the employees would stack the food items carefully in separate trash bags from the 'actual' rubbish and put these bags next to the bins

pageantry of plausible deniability is a hilarious thing

(o) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2014/jan/...

[chrisseaton]

Pre-trial? It's from 1877 and listed in an industry reference on legal precedents. And that precedent still stands because, as the article says, they're still prosecuting people for it.

> One precedent-setting example from 1877 was the case of a diseased buried pig. According to legal text Archbold's Pleading, Evidence, and Practice in Criminal Cases, even if someone discards something and does not intend to use it again, they can retain ownership of it.

> this practice was part of the squat culture as well

Not sure this would work as a defence, to be honest.

[mannanj]

So it's theft unless the trash companies do it? Essentially sounds like unless you're a company, i.e. you're doing this personally, you are stealing (unless of course people pay you as a company to steal their stuff).

[chrisseaton]

You're giving the bin companies permission to take it because you have an agreement with them and have placed it in an agreed location.

If a third party bin company you had no relationship with took it it would also be theft.

[nyolfen]

oi mate where's ya rubbish licence

[chrisseaton]

It's not about a 'licence' - we don't have licenses for rubbish collection - it's about permission from the person who owns the rubbish.

[briandear]

Squatting in a residential building is also illegal: https://www.gov.uk/squatting-law