Not sure if this comes under stealing but here is my bit, my brother in law was a plumber for a university about 8 years ago and they had a room refit after the last refit about 12 months previous?? but the old (12 months old) ofiice furniture was getting skipped and the management said under no circumstances could anybody have anything...still dont know why though, anyhow we went in a sunday evening as he had keys and relocated chairs,desks and cabinets all in almost brand new condition... so if its from a skip on private property is this classed as stealing or recycling?
It's classed as stealing!
Woman caught rifling through the bins at tesco (not a tramp, a bloody new age eco hippie) was charged and convicted of theft. Judge found on case law which says that even if someone throws something away they retain ownership of it. (and can effectively decide whether it goes to the dump or not)
Yes nowadays it is classed as stealing. 30 years ago or so when my father worked for the council some bright spark had the idea of prosecuting people for taking things out of skips but was told bluntly by the police that charging someone with stealing rubbish was hardly a crime and not worth persuing. Nowadays as has been pointed out it's theft
Taking something that a firm has finished with and is going to throw away is a world apart from taking something they are still using such as the pens mentioned above.
