Recycling Center

I believe no one on this forum is gonna say or admit to taking anything illegally or wrongfully. That is stealing. And it is against the rules to talk about here. With that being said. Yea, people throw all kinds of stuff away that could be sold for more than scrap. That is why we are here. Unfortunately we cannot take from that kind of place.

I am a manager at a municipal recycling center. I would not hesitate to bring up charges on you if you did that at my place. If it specifically says no picking then do not. Your best bet is to go talk to whom ever is in charge. If it is just a few items then probably not a big deal if you are reusing and not ripping them apart.

There is nothing we hate more than scavengers. I have never had a problem with someone picking for reuse but when they start taking stuff to just make a profit, that is wrong. Also a bad way to get on a watch list.

Go directly to jail. All curb scrap ain't free. It was set out for me and you stole it.

I got a call. Drove 20 miles all to find a empty spot. If you don't have personal permission. Your stealing.

Who was your contact. Alley thefts are on the rise. Protect your grill and.....and....sigh! That's not the woods a stream or a vacant lot.

Border line criminal. Imho.

Who called you ?

I have one of those contracts from our city/county. There are signs and cameras also. People still come in there and take MY scrap. I pay them for it so it belongs to ME!
That one computer,one ac unit, or one flat screen that is taken is one less gallon of gas for my family, or one less dollar for me to eat.
So you may think so what it's only 1 or 2 items, how would u feel if I come to your scrap place and only "take" 1 or 2 items. You would be pissed as I am when people take my scrap.
If I see people there that aren't supposed to, I take down liscense plates and the cops will give verbal warnings to all at first, but the next is a ticket for trespassing and theft. $338 for those two tickets.
Sorry if this is a longer post, but I deal with this on a rather routine basis and it pisses me off. These people are to lazy to put the work in to get accounts, but seem to think it's ok to just take someone else's. Thanks for letting me rant.

Most municipalities will charge you with both trespass and theft, if you are fortunate they would start off by just issuing you citations, non criminal charges. But guaranteed the second time around it will be criminal theft. However if you catch any of the the public works managers, investigating officers, or city prosecutor in a bad mood and you will be on the fast track for criminal charges (ie spend time in the cross bar hotel) first timer or not. You will also be paying restitution as a part of any plea agreement, and you will have to plead guilty because you will be on video tape etc...There is also the possibility of the police impounding your vehicle and obtaining a no contact order (most states that's a criminal charge if you violate it).

Would the system really spend all that time and money dealing with a bit of scrap theft? Yes; it absolutely will just to set an example, that means a press release with the offenders name and photo in the local paper, might even make the local TV news if they get good video of you. Look ma, I am on TV!

Ok, enough preaching. Your best bet is to try and intercept that scrap before the city gets it. That may mean paying for it, however most folks would rather you show up and get their stuff than having to lug it down to the municipal center. Private enterprise almost always can do things quicker and more efficiently than the government, find a way to legally take advantage of that.

Let's apply that to the city. Those funds go somewhere man. It's not like it's profit for them, or extra. Bpat can correct if I'm wrong but I'm sure those city funds from the recycling centers, go to many city/county things. Road Improvements, schools, etc etc. Keep that in mind next time your like.."How can it hurt them.." an your complaining your city isn't offering a service.

Correct, mine is a little different but most recycling centers revenues goes back into the general fund. You have to look at it by thinking about every cent made/saved is saving tax payers money.

My place has a deal where the mixed electronics (everything but CRT, LCD, computers) are recycled for no charge at a certified place. They can do this because they can pick out the good stuff for refurb or resale. This is where they make their money and take the crap at no charge. If they got all crap then they would be charging us (costing the tax payers money).

For my definition of a "scavenger" is the following...

A person who takes an item(s) of value for resale (scrapping or otherwise) without compensating the owner.

So say you take an metal item (say $5 scrap value). You resell the item for $25. In my opinion, you should at least pay the $5 back. I do this at other recycling centers and they are very happy. I recently found an item that I knew had some value. I ending up selling it for $150.00. I gave the town $50.00 (scrap price was maybe $2). It probably took me 3 hours to clean and list the item on Craigslist.

Originally Posted by bpatnoe

Correct, mine is a little different but most recycling centers revenues goes back into the general fund. You have to look at it by thinking about every cent made/saved is saving tax payers money.

My place has a deal where the mixed electronics (everything but CRT, LCD, computers) are recycled for no charge at a certified place. They can do this because they can pick out the good stuff for refurb or resale. This is where they make their money and take the crap at no charge. If they got all crap then they would be charging us (costing the tax payers money).

We just had a Lions Club Electronics Recycling center shut down due to this. They dropped a container off and left it open for after hour drop offs. It was pillaged regularly and left with only large amounts of tv's. The company quit buying after just a few months.

The company still charges for CRTs. Right now they charge $0.17 per pound. Second cheapest place I know of. The other charge a cent less but pickup fee is $30 more.

i have been away from here for a good while so i want to say hello and thank you to all the fine folks here who got me started into e scrap..which is really working out for me now.....

ok that said back to the topic of the post.....im from southern ohio and around here it would be called stealing to take something from a donation area that is clearly marked do not take stuff, depending on the dollar amount of things you took it could even be a felony....

i am 34 years old and have been a junk hauler since i was 10 or 12 years old...i remember the good old days when no one around here scrapped anything but copper or aluminum....i was around 16 or 17 and i would take trailer loads of appliances off and get .95 cents a hundred...cars were 1.50 per hundred...
then the price jumped up to 4.00 per hundred for appliances and 5.00 per hundred for cars...ok now i have a little competition but things are still great and i am making money every day...

then the big price jump came copper went to 3.00 to 4.00 a pound , cars were 13.00 to 14.00 per hundred batteries were 12.00 to 13,00 each and of course catalytic converters were as valuable as gold...this was nice for a while but it created a new breed of junk haulers ...

THE THIEVES it got so bad around here it started giving the respectable hard working guys a bad name..it started being common to have police show up at junk yards and go through your loads because you had something similar to what some junky stole from a company the night before...it made me mad at the cops at first then i realized how bad the metal theft was, and i realized the cops were doing there job and it were the thieves fault...

i have lost thousands of dollars to the thieves around here over the last several years...i used to buy converters, transmissions, batteries, and radiators off of local people...i loved doing that...my favorite part was when id have 11 or 12 year old kids bring me stuff they dug out of dumps , id always give them a little extra than i would an adult..it made me feel good to see them working like that at such a young age...

then my house was robbed one day...luckily my wife was gone and no one was hurt...they went straight to my little junk room and got about 3 grand worth of converters , and several car batteries...of course the law can do nothing about it....this made me decide to give up my little business of buying things from my friends and neighbors, i was working a full time job at the time and figured the extra money i made once a month from hauling off the stuff was not worth the safety of my family...
this incident opened my eyes to how bad the metal theft was around here..then came all the new laws and rules that were a direct result of the stealing...not to mention when someone saw you hauling a big load of junk if they didn't know you they assumed you were a thief because metal theft was on the local news 3 times a day every day...

i don't want to offend anyone with this answer but YES STEALING IS STEALING..if there's a sign that says don't take stuff...then DONT TAKE STUFF...people taking without asking is one of the biggest problems with hauling junk now a days ....as far as how they would prove it or what the punishment would be i can not say for sure...hey you may get away with it for a while, you may get away with it for ever... but in my opinion a person who takes without asking SHOULD NOT GET AWAY WITH IT...and the type of person who thinks it would be ok to take stuff from a donation place like that without asking deserves to be punished...stealing metal in any way shape or form is bad business for any and all HONEST JUNKERS....and it gives us all a bad name....

we have community cleanups around my area and i went through a ton of red tape and had to buy insurance to get access to the dumpsters that the township brings in for this....i make a lot of money every year from this because i put the time and effort into obtaining it the legal way..these dumpsters have the same kinda signs,,you know camera surveillance, penalty of law and all that stuff...instead of trying to figure out how to rob the place i figured out how to get it legally...guess what it worked great... i get all the metal from the cleanup now....even with all the stuff the local drug addicts get in there and take i still come out great on the deal...

best advice i can give is report any and all metal theft you see....ask before you take ( sometimes you will be surprised ) , do not steal anything,,,,think about how you would feel if you owned the stuff..

..most of all be honest, always ask, work hard and take pride in what you do and eventually good things will happen...

i forgot to add one thing.......i am glad to see the responses this question got from all the fine members here on scrap metal forum.....its nice to know there are still good honest hard working folks around here

So you should contact them and see if you could buy the better items before they scrap them...

Seems we are all in agreement. Do not take anything! I might be tempted to inform the place of the people I see taking stuff.
If you are using them to drop off the bad stuff they need other to drop off the good stuff to make it worth it for them. Last thing you want if sor place to close then you need to figure out what to do with your TV's

Does the items or property have your name on it? I didn't think so! So you need to ask before taking, stealing is just what the word sounds like "stealing". You can dress it anyway you want, borrowed, took, taken, was just curious, wanted to look at it for awhile, didn't look like it belonged to anybody - Iv'e heard all of these, if my name is on it and you have it without my permission - YOU STOLEN FROM ME - I WANT IT BACK - AND NOW YOUR GOING TO PAY! Does my name have to be on it? No - if it was on my property and now it's not and in your possession - same thing! - So you sold it! Your hole just keeps getting deeper. Ask, always ask if it's not your property.

Yea...don't do that.