Is it common practice to "steal" from a skip?!

[tan8856]

Id heard of people dumping their rubbish in other peoples empty skips but not of people removing stuff from full ones!

At the weekend we cleared out our garden and put all our rubbish (and it is 100% junk) into a skip which is on our front drive. I arrived home today to find some of that 'rubbish' had been taken! They would have needed a large van or truck to remove what they did so it must have been planned (or do people drive around looking for full skips to rummage?)

Half of me is very pleased - as a keen recycler im glad my garden waste is being put to use rather than going into landfill. The other half is a bit uneasy that someone has taken something off my property without permission. I wonder if they knocked to ask if it was ok?

Is this common practice? I should have listed my 'skip full of cr*p' on ebay and got a few quid for it!

 

[kevindgas]

yes it is common practice these days

****** will remove any metal not matter how small! car booters will salvage anything worth 10p

 

[dextrous]

Not untypical - mostly looking for metal for scrap value, although timber is sometimes usable.

Personally, I leave things on my drive with the intention of it getting taken. Saves me lugging it to the tip, and if someone gets a few quid for it, good luck to them - they're doing me a favour.

 

[tan8856]

yes it was all metal that went - some rusty old metal poles and an aluminium porch that had been used as a cold-frame for plants!

do you think i could have actually sold these things on ebay as scrap metal?!

 

[mattylad]

Skip diving is a way of life, having seen what some throw away in them I always have a gander as I pass a skip.

I once found a small incubator in a skip, worked perfectly.
Sold it for £50 to my previous employers as they wanted a oven for testing stuff.

 

[big-all]

yes it was all metal that went - some rusty old metal poles and an aluminium porch that had been used as a cold-frame for plants!

do you think i could have actually sold these things on ebay as scrap metal?!

eeehhh you need to think of that idea carefully

scrap metal low value high weight
e bay costs would outweigh any profit
scrap metal is only profitable if its free or nearly free perhaps £ 50 a ton
so your share would be 0 to £10 so not worth anything

 

[dave-lew99]

Skip diving

Quite common, especially with companies getting rid of IT kit and whatnot.

People throw out all sorts of useful stuff - the people who run my local council tip collect all electronics separately - the amount of stuff people throw away which is in perfect working order just because they wanted a new one is unbelievable.

One man's junk is another man's treasure as they say.

 

[yme]

Is it classed as stealing?
How many times do you see people on Antique Roadshow type programmes showing something that they have "Found" in a skip.

 

[mattylad]

Yes, it is classed as theft.
However, it is simple to knock on the door of the house where the skip is & ask, most often than not people are happy to allow you to remove stuff from the skip as long as you don't leave a mess.

Even stuff such as hardcore/soil is sought after by others & skip diving can save you an awful lot of money.

 

[wotan]

If taking stuff from a skip, that people have thrown away is considered theft? Why can't you counteract this by putting your rubbish in it's place.

Wotan

 

[Bodgeit and scarper ltd]

just off to the skip at the wood yard, i always ask, they are pleased to get rid of it. i have built my sheds from it.

 

[^neo^]

To give you an idea, one of the engineering companies on our site went bust last month and the landlord had the job of 'clearing' it.
I went through the skip after they had taken everything that they knew 'what it was for'.
I pulled out drill bits, taps, dies, reamers, a plasma cutter, micrometers, vernier calipers, steel rules, drill vices etc etc.
I had a rough tot up and reckon if you had to buy it all new you'd be looking around £10k, so was worth an hour grovelling through it!

 

[TicklyT]

IIRC a few years ago a reporter set up a skip full of junk with a surveillance camera covering it, and left it for a few days just to see what happened. By the time they finished observing it, the skip was still just as full, but all the junk dumped in it had changed about three or four times.

 

[seco services]

so was worth an hour grovelling through it!

wouldn't lower myself to being a *****. come round about five you can have my dinner scraps.

 

[ColJack]

10K worth of still usefull engineering tools is hardly the same as dinner scraps is it?

it was the same at the place I worked when they moved factories..

they finally got round to clearing the stores and the amount of stuff they were skipping was criminal..

the threw out 2 never used industrial gas burners ( the kind you get in smaller units for heating ), 6 brand new merlin gerin fuse boards, minus the fuses, tons of odd bolts and nuts that they couldn't be arsed in sorting out, boxes of site returns with leftover bits from installations ( again because they never sorted it out back into stock ) and the list went on..

must have easily been 10K in good stuff, and probablyu another 2k in scrap value alone.. ( bent air con coils etc. )

copper and ALI are getting good prices at the moment, so they'll have pipes and things away if you're doing a kitchen up etc..