[MisterTea]

Years ago we were cleaning out our shop and had to scrap a lot of metal. At the scrap yard in Brooklyn there was a separate line for copper and aluminum vs iron and steel which was mostly a bulk dump job. Seemed like half of the line were homeless and destitute people. Many had shopping carts full of various pieces of aluminum and whatever, lots of AC condensers and copper tubing. There was a couple ahead of me, skinny, toothless, ragged and smelled of BO and urine were holding a few bundles of AV cables and an old extension cord in their hands - a scene of desperation.

The problem with policing scrap yards is you can't prove anyone stole anything. You could limit who can drop off scrap but then you create incentives for those people to purchase illicit scrap and pass it off as legit.

[Symbiote]

I think in the UK the scrap yards can only pay electronically, with a delay of several days. They must also record photo identification.

This was put in place after the Nth theft of railway cables.

[pixl97]

In the US you typically have to give identification to sell scrap, so it sets up a chain of evidence against you. Still doesn't stop methheads.

[testing22321]

Should we police the scrap yards, or help the fellow citizens who are “skinny, toothless, ragged and smelled of BO and urine”

What a place to live.

[MisterTea]

What have you done to help your fellow citizens? I've been down the path of helping deeply addicted people and learned many hard lessons. Some people can be helped more easily than others. Some are almost impossible without constant professional help that is financially impossible to afford by 99% of the population.

[trehalose]

Some nonzero percentage of these people could have been helped cheaper and more easily earlier on to prevent them from getting to this point in the first place.

[Psillisp]

Cope that you called out. May your house always smell of roses.