[neilv]

As a poor-student-ish activity in a US college town, I used to systematically walk trash pickup zones of the city streets the night before the zone's pickup, looking for useful household items that people customarily set beside their trash bags for some poor student type to grab.

Occasionally, it would look like some scavenger had come along before me, and cut the connectors off computer cables, and took only the cable. Not even cut the cable off an appliance to which it was attached, but simply a cable with connectors on both ends.

For example, one time it was for a complete vintage Mac setup, which someone had taken some care to set out with all the required items... but the cables were missing; only their cut-off connectors were there.

One time, I actually saw a/the person doing this. He looked just like a comfortable gray-haired engineer, calmly standing on the sidewalk with a heavy wire cutter, snipping the connectors off a computer cable someone had set out on the curb. I was so surprised, that I didn't say anything to him.

[stevage]

Around here (Melbourne, Australia) it's not "occasionally", it's extremely common, and often happens very soon after stuff is put out.