
Cardboard theft - sohkamyung
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53724620
======
stickfigure
I'm confused by this quote:

"And theft is hardly ever reported by companies, because why would they? If
magic pixies have nicked their waste cardboard then it means they don't have
to pay a firm like mine to come and pick it up. So they are going to keep
schtum [quiet]."

So... these gangs are wandering around picking up cardbord from business that
would have otherwise had to pay for someone to haul it off? Sounds like a
public service! Something is fundamentally wrong here.

~~~
snarfy
It's the pricing structure. They charge less to take something away if it has
some value. The magic pixies are taking the value out. It's a public service
until your bill goes up to haul away the trash nobody wants.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
God forbid trash be de-bundled from valuable material and priced accordingly.
It might even give companies an incentive to ensure more of their waste stream
is recyclable and less of it trash <clutches pearls>.

~~~
danans
Debundling types of waste pickup results in greater inefficiency because of
the high fixed costs associated with pickup (trucks, fuel, fixed cost of
employing workers). This is why in most cities, pick up is only handled by one
or two private firms contracted with the municipality.

That is, unless and until some groundbreaking cost lowering technology comes
into existence. Given the physical reality of this work and the slim margins
(it's commodities after all), that seems unlikely.

The best angle of attack for this problem from the market/technology
perspective is finding ways to economically deliver goods without so much
cardboard, since manufacturers and retailers have a strong incentive to reduce
the cost of delivering products.

~~~
jessaustin
_This is why in most cities, pick up is only handled by one or two private
firms contracted with the municipality._

Corruption is the only reason this has ever happened anywhere. In the
countryside, which due to lower density is _more difficult_ to serve, multiple
trash trucks serve multiple customers and there is no problem.

~~~
danans
> due to lower density is more difficult to serve, multiple trash trucks serve
> multiple customers and there is no problem.

You can't compare the two like that because they are fundamentally different
environments.

In the countryside it makes more sense to contract separately because trash
pickup is less frequent and there are so few people in general - definitely
not enough to achieve the economies of scale. The trash pickup trucks there
are likely involved in lots of other businesses, too. And even with that, a
lot of people in the "countryside" just illegally dump trash. They can get
away with that because of the low density and lack of enforcement.

In the city, if trash pickup were something that households and business
contracted out optionally, a substantial minority of people will not pay for
the service at all and instead litter the the high density common environment
with their trash. This already happens to a degree, especially with large
items and construction debris, and without municipally organized trash
removal, it would be even worse.

------
rvnx
The fastest the trash is collected, the better for the society.

These guys provide the service for free and faster than the "legitimate" one.

They didn't threaten anyone. They just came, picked up the trash, and left.

The only angry people are the "legitimate" waste collectors who pay kickbacks
to politicians to keep this monopoly alive.

~~~
justin66
> The fastest the trash is collected, the better for the society.

If society in the aggregate is spending twice as much (or whatever) fuel to
get the recyclables to the recyclers, a few hours less time spent waiting in
the bin is not some kind of win.

> The only angry people are the "legitimate" waste collectors who pay
> kickbacks to politicians to keep this monopoly alive.

Some percentage of the people who don't want randos going through their bins
are certainly angry.

~~~
Nextgrid
Aren’t bins intentionally left unlocked (or rather most dumpsters don’t even
have a lock) on the streets so that whoever willing to take away their
contents is able to? As far as the business is concerned they don’t care who
takes their trash as long as it does get taken away.

~~~
Jolter
This is clearly not the case with these particular dumpsters. The article
shows a picture of a suspect exiting the bin through a very small hole that
was designed not to let people enter.

~~~
Nextgrid
To me it seems like he was doing that just because he didn't have the garbage
truck that would lift the entire dumpster and tip it over into the truck. It
doesn't seem like he's "breaking in", in the sense that that opening
(unintentionally) wasn't built big enough for a person to fit through as
opposed to being an intentional security feature.

~~~
dmix
The article says the bins were changed by city council for this exact reason,
to be smaller and harder to fit in and take from manually.

Which clearly didn’t work so they did a sting operation. Apparently humans are
harder to defeat than raccoons.

------
URSpider94
People are missing the point here. Stealing recycling from the curbside is not
a victimless crime. Municipal waste hauling contracts are based on a balance
between the cost to dispose of trash and less-valuable recyclables like mixed
paper and the profit from high-value recyclables like aluminum and cardboard.
If people start skimming all the valuable materials out of the bins, then the
net cost to the city goes up, and they’ll have to either raise rates or make
it up by cutting costs somewhere else.

~~~
perl4ever
That sounds like a plausible scenario, but why would it be a _problem_ for
society in general? It seems like saying "what if gas stations can't sell
candy bars at inflated prices, they'll have to raise the price of gas". Or "if
credit card transaction fees are regulated, cash back deals will go away". Ok,
so be it. A sudden change might be bad, but is it worth seriously fighting a
new equilibrium?

~~~
pstrateman
It's simple theft.

It's the same problem for society as any other kind of theft.

~~~
wyattpeak
Maybe some of it is theft, but some of it is clearly not. From the article:

> If magic pixies have nicked their waste cardboard then it means they don't
> have to pay a firm like mine to come and pick it up.

That's not theft in any moral sense, though I can't speak to British law. The
owner wanted it gone. It wasn't owed to anyone else (or they wouldn't have to
pay someone to take it away). A firm is upset they didn't get a contract,
that's all.

~~~
joshuaissac
It could potentially be theft in a legal sense, under s.1(1) of the Theft Act
1968,[1] depending on whether the jury finds that the conduct of the "thieves"
was dishonest from the perspective of a reasonable person.[2] Although I do
not think a jury would make such a finding in most cases, nor would the owners
support a prosecution of those who provide what is essentially a free service.

1\.
[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/1](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/1)

2\. s.74
[https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2017/67.html](https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2017/67.html)

------
ogre_codes
> The police have photos of some of the men crawling in and out of recycling
> bins.

The guys who are crawling into recycling bins are likely just down-on-their
luck, broke people who are trying to feed their families. I'm not even sure
they are worth prosecuting, and it's likely they are taking the food out of
someone's mouth doing so.

I think this should be pursued, but unless they are catching the higher ups
who are really profiting off of this, it's pointless and just hurts the poor.

~~~
JadeNB
> I'm not even sure they are worth prosecuting, and it's likely they are
> taking the food out of someone's mouth doing so.

Just to be clear, I think that these two 'they's are different. The first
'they' is the recycling-bin crawlers, and the second 'they' (the ones taking
the food out of mouths) are the prosecutors, not the crawlers, right?

~~~
ogre_codes
Yes. I don't think bin crawlers are leaving anyone hungry.

------
Imaiomus
Article fails to point that Ecoembes in Spain its a defacto recycling
monopolistic mafia, in Europe usually you get paid for your bottles and trash,
here you have to paid a insane tax and then they sell the trash on top getting
even more profit

[https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-la-
ciudad/medio...](https://www.metropoliabierta.com/el-pulso-de-la-
ciudad/medioambiente/los-expertos-critican-la-ineficacia-del-modelo-
ecoembes_4718_102.html)

[https://www.productordesostenibilidad.es/2016/02/ecoembes-
no...](https://www.productordesostenibilidad.es/2016/02/ecoembes-no-es-lo-que-
parece/)

------
scott_russell
It seems like the obvious problem here is that the "legitimate recycling
firms, and the city and other local authorities who take a cut from their
sales" should be giving a cut of those sales to the residents and shop owners
who are supplying the "beige gold".

~~~
acheron9383
I see the resale value of the recycling as subsidizing the cost of the
recycling service. We pay for,(or your taxes do, depends on where you live)
trash/recycling because then someone comes on regular intervals to take it.
Part of that cost is "paying" them in the recyclables as well. Honestly the
reduced complexity of the current system is nicer then having to pay me back
like some sort of recyclables consignment scheme.

~~~
pests
Right. I thought the whole expectation of a company coming and taking a bunch
of waste and recyclables from you for either free or low-cost was that they
were profiting from your waste.

------
qubex
This is my reading of the situation:

Firms are disposing of their trash and “official recyclers” are being
preempted from collecting some (valuable) portion of that trash by gangs.

Clearly the recycling firms are taking a hit, but they’ve also agreed to take
a risk. Consumers could equally choose to burn that cardboard in their
furnaces to heat their buildings in winter, or something like that. There can
be fluctuations in output of that trash. We’d all hope, generally, that the
amount of trash worldwide will tend to decrease (though of course, so far it
isn’t).

As far as I’m concerned, this acceleration of the rate of collection of trash,
an arms race between official and unofficial recyclers, should be considered a
net positive for society: after all, a public service is being provided more
efficiently to the community.

Does this affect the profitability of the official firms, left to handle only
the ‘undesirable’ fraction? Absolutely, but that needs to be handled by market
mechanisms, readjusting (upwards) the price of disposal of the undesirable
fraction of waste, which in turn will drive down the relative cost of using
that cardboard that everybody apparently is so eager to pick off the sidewalk
or pilfer out of the dumpsters.

As usual, somebody has instituted a monopoly (trash collection) and is moaning
that they’re not getting as much benefit from it as they had expected, because
market forces are eroding away their pre-eminence. Isn’t this what what free-
market economics is all about?

~~~
luckylion
> Consumers could equally choose to burn that cardboard in their furnaces to
> heat their buildings in winter, or something like that.

They technically could, but disposing of trash by burning it is generally
illegal in most countries.

> after all, a public service is being provided more efficiently to the
> community.

Every service can be provided more efficiently if you don't pay taxes and
don't need to consider regulations.

------
parliament32
The funny thing is this is just straight-up competition. If these guys can
generate money from taking it away for free, why am I paying the city to take
it away for me? Hell, if I owned a business I'd happily deliver the cardboard
to these "thieves" than pay a waste management company.

~~~
refurb
Scale?

A company can haul away recycling for $X as long as they get Y volume to help
recoup costs.

When they can only collect Y-Z%, then $X no longer covers costs and the price
goes up for the city.

~~~
rvnx
The financial reports of Waste Management Inc are slightly less pessimistic :)

------
serjester
Don't particularly see a problem here since the cardboard is still getting
recycled. Seems like a nifty arbitrage opportunity. Wish the government would
channel their profits to creating a superior service instead of prosecuting
their competition. Obviously there's nuances but still.

~~~
URSpider94
The issue is that the cost of running a recycling route is largely fixed - one
truck, one crew, one day to run the route. That’s balanced out by selling the
cardboard that is collected to a recycling plant. If half of the cardboard
goes missing, then the cost stays the same but the revenue drops by half. The
municipality is going to have to make up that shortfall by raising taxes or
increasing the charge for trash/recycling hauling.

~~~
rvnx
Well, the waste collectors will recalculate the price with more transparency
and start sorting the lower value items instead of putting everything inside a
landfill.

Then they will create a spin-off with more efficient people dedicated to
collect "precious" trash.

------
bynormous
Is it theft if the people and companies throwing it out don't care? I would
assume it's not the cities or garbage company's property until it's actually
picked up?

~~~
gruez
>I would assume it's not the cities or garbage company's property until it's
actually picked up?

Depends on where the cardboard was dumped. If it's on the curb somewhere, on
public property, there's a stronger case that the property as abandoned[1].
However, if it's a dumpster located on private property, an argument can be
made that the residents/businesses disposing of the garbage is immediately
transferring ownership to the city. eg. consider the scenario where a factory
dumps its metal scraps in a dumpster so it can be picked up by a recycler (who
will pay the factory for the scraps). You also see something similar for
restaurants where they have a dedicated storage container for oil, which a
dedicated company picks up and pays them for it. In those cases it's clear
that the "garbage" isn't being abandoned, and still belongs to either the
original owner, or the company designated to pick it up.

[1] Although even that's tricky, eg. the process for clothing donations
involves leaving your clothes on the curb for pick up. Are articles of
clothing left like that fair game for anyone else to snatch first? I don't
think so, given that the intent is for it to be picked up by the designated
entity, not merely just abandoned.

~~~
owenversteeg
While I think you're right (in terms of laws around abandoned property) it's
worth noting that the gangs discussed in the article only steal cardboard in
large quantities. At $80/ton, even a pound of cardboard is just 3 cents.

Now, in poorer countries, people absolutely do collect individual pieces of
scrap cardboard, even at those incredibly low prices. But that's more related
to a much, much sadder discussion about income inequality. If you want to see
what that looks like, living on scraps from the streets, Reuters recently did
an interesting photo piece: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-
homeless-widerimag...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-homeless-
widerimage/how-to-survive-a-siberian-winter-with-no-home-idUSKBN20D1EI)

~~~
rolph
>> living on scraps from the streets <<

been at this bit ^ for as long as i can remember

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism)

[https://freegan.info/](https://freegan.info/)

------
fouc
Criminals are after the beige gold! Ha.

I'm somewhat baffled by how the government is mishandling this so bad. Just
find a way to legitimize the so-called criminals, make it easier for them to
work within the law, and then tax them.

~~~
gruez
That doesn't solve the main issue: that recycling programs are partially
subsidized by profitable waste. eg. cardboard and metals might make a profit
when factoring in cost of pick up and processing, but plastic might not. At
the same time, you want to promote recycling across all types of materials, so
you don't want to penalize people for recycling plastic[1]. If you have
private companies picking off the profitable waste, the taxpayers will have to
make up the shortfall. You see the same funding model in other areas as well.
eg. the postal service
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#Universal_service_obligation_and_monopoly_status)

[1] Although some argue that if something isn't worth recycling at market
rates, then we shouldn't recycle it at all, because it likely means that it's
a net-negative for the environment.

~~~
fouc
Yeah I was going to mention that. Recycling programs probably shouldn't be
depending on profitable waste.

This seems like a problem of mis-aligned incentives..

~~~
PTOB
Yup. Dependency on profitable waste is a business decision that comes with
some risk. If it doesn't pan out, it's the company's own fault.

------
barbegal
So at ~ $170/£130 tonne an average cardboard box which weighs 500g will get
you 8.5c/6.5p. Assuming you can remove 5 boxes per minute that equates to 300
boxes per hour or $25/£20 per hour. I can see why there might be a demand but
it doesn't seem hugely profitable unless you are stealing cardboard which has
already been compacted or which you can remove into a vehicle fairly easily.

~~~
r0m4n0
In NYC the boxes are already bundled and left on sidewalks all over the city,
I think because they are required to make it as easy as possible to
collect/separate.

Whenever I move I usually walk around a few blocks and snag a few bundles to
assist as packing material. Little did I know I was actually committing a
crime

------
tdeck
This happens with cans and bottles here in San Francisco as well because they
can be redeemed for the CRV. People rifle through the blue bins on my street
every week. I assume maybe recycling pickup would be cheaper without this.
Meanwhile turning in these bottles myself for the deposit would be a huge
nightmare because the centers are only in far-flung parts of the city without
easy access to transit.

~~~
rvnx
In my town as well, street people are collecting plastic bottles as fast as
possible in order to get back a couple of cents.

As a result, the trash is less full, it doesn't spill everywhere, and the
"legitimate" waste pickers have less to carry as well.

And for myself, it's an added value: I don't need to sort, I don't need to
pay.

It costs me 10 cents per bottle but I'm sure it will be properly processed and
that the money will go to the most motivated.

~~~
superhuzza
Around where I live, it works really well in parks and busy streets.

But in residential areas the homeless people come and slash open trash bags,
and dump garbage all over the street. Even if you put all your bottles in a
clear bag for them, they will slash your black trash bags anyways just to
check. It's super annoying and probably dangerous to them as well.

~~~
rvnx
Sad :( This would make sense to be punished I guess (since it's damaging
property)

------
Ansil849
Can someone please explain how this constitutes theft. Under British law, does
recycling left on a public street instantly become the property of the State?
Could someone link to the relevant British legislation around this.

~~~
PJDK
Not a lawyer - but the act of putting something on the street doesn't make you
stop owning it. If you leave a bike unlocked and someone takes it they still
stole it, even if you were unwise not to lock it up.

------
adolph
> They are accused of stealing and shipping more than 67,000 tonnes of waste a
> year since 2015, at an average value of €10m ($11.8m; £9m) per year.

> Believed to have been involved in 11 of the 18 routes in the city, it is
> estimated that they cost the City Council of Madrid a total of €16m in lost
> recycling revenues.

> ...

> Like any commodity, the price of recycled cardboard ebbs and flows according
> to global demand. Simon Ellin, chief executive of UK trade body The
> Recycling Association, says the current price is between £70 and £80 per
> tonne.

(67000 / 5) * 75 = 1,005,000. The math doesn't seem right.

~~~
elgfare
67000 per year. They also said the price was historically higher.

------
dhosek
Kind of reminds me of the rash of metal thefts in the '00s in Los Angeles.
Thieves would steal wiring from power lines and most notoriously, an historic
statue in Carthay Circle was stolen, but later recovered from a scrap yard and
the thieves identified and arrested. Only after metal prices came back down in
2008–2009 did the thefts stop.

[https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/miner-
statue-...](https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/miner-statue-
ba.html)

~~~
analog31
I grew up in an area where thieves would go into an unoccupied house, and
strip out the copper plumbing and wiring from the inside. It rendered the
house practically unrepairable, and many such houses were abandoned.

~~~
itronitron
There is a funny scene in 'The Wire' where one of the local addicts realizes
they can just steal the uninstalled copper tubing from houses that are in the
process of being renovated/gentrified rather than stripping old plumbing out.

~~~
Scoundreller
Sometimes unscrupulous plumbers fixing a clog would cut out 6' or 8' chunks of
4" solid copper drain pipe in old houses and splice in PVC for some extra $$$.

------
yodelshady
For some historical context, human urine and faeces/night soil have been sold
privately in several societies (one episode of "no such thing as a fish"
covers tenant's rights to same in... I want to say 19th century Japan. One was
your property, the other the landlord's).

There doesn't really seem to be a problem here. The public sector is for
things we agree collectivity benefit us, but can't be properly monetised.

------
torgian
Seems to me the solution is to just let the people take the cardboard ( and to
an extent, other scrap material ). If they’re taking it to make money, some of
them probably actually need that money.

I know people who walk around making a hundred bucks a day collecting cans and
cardboard. They got no other job. They can’t get any other job. That’s how
they survive.

~~~
pests
Not to mention, that person is extracting a valuable resource (evedent from
his pay) that society otherwise would have forgot. Either it would have been
ignored or extracted at a higher cost (and benefiting those already wealthy.)

~~~
sukilot
That's like saying shoplifting is extracting a valuable resource that society
forgot.

------
aussieguy1234
In The Philippines, were there is a large amount of homeless people who use
cardboard for shelter, certain homeless people are known to hoard cardboard
and then sell it to other homeless people.

------
petercooper
They can come round my place. My driveway is covered with endless cardboard
from various deliveries and purchases. We have to book a slot at the local
recycling centre and lug it up there ourselves every few weeks :-)

------
jbdigriz
I definitely learned something intriguing today - thanks for sharing!

------
smileysteve
So, over here in America (Georgia) the recycling company won't pickup
cardboard if it won't fit in their tiny bin; Which means by complex then pays
our trash company to take the cardboard. using a dumpster that could probably
last 4x as long without cardboard.

tldr; come to America, please take some cardboard.

------
jordache
how is this theft?

Isn't the cardboard simply garbage?

~~~
Scoundreller
Nope, recycled many times. And with everyone buying crap online, there's
actually demand for re-using cardboard.

