Anyone here have an issue with bin raiders? Ie scavengers who go through your yellow bins for the 10c recyclable cans and bottles?
Bin raiders what's your thoughts?
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This.
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Perhaps just place a sign, sticker or writing on the bin politely asking any scavengers not to make a mess?
I'd much prefer someone in need and willing to take my recyclable containers than the council.
@Scrooge McDuck: I'm assuming that bin raiders provide some useful sorting of recyclables and a saving of costs associated with curb collection trucks.
Otherwise it's not great to have someone redoing work that has already been done to claim public money. That's somewhat of a minor welfare fraud.
Agreed.
not sure why you get negged - if they do it for a living it will constitute a business and the income will be taxable.
True, but heartless. Couldn't be that hard to figure out, surely.
Ok
Dahell
I've seen some bin raiders.
Keep in mind that in the last few years, we had wage stagnation, huge increases in utility/council prices, crazy rises in insurance rates, newstart not keeping up with inflation, coupled with a near stagnant economy. Throw in ageism and I'm not surprised there are people out there who are really struggling.
I chatted with a few of them and find that they are extremely polite, respectful and generally clean up after themselves. Almost all of them are elderly and for them, if it means the difference between being able to have another meal and going hungry, I do not mind.
Some people who pour scorn over these people sometimes forgets that the difference between you and them is just a regular paycheck away. Fortunes can turn in an instant. Not everyone is lucky or fortunate enough to have a job that pays well. Underpayment is rife everywhere as we are learning day by day that it is now the new "normal".
Perhaps I'm lucky but over the last frw years not only I haven't experienced any huge increases, my council rates have dropped so have my utilities after findind even cheaper providers with some research. Ocerall I'd say my total expenditure has stayed the same in 5 yrs. Meanwhile my wages have grown by approx 15% over the same period. Only downside has been the value of the AUD
When raiding recycle bins it's pretty annoying that they are taking money away from council that you've sorted for them. Any money council doesn't make through recycling gets made up for in your rates increases.
Most of them will end up leaving a mess.
If they get injured, you may be liable.
There's just no upside to this.
If they get injured, you may be liable.
Really, I thought you could just say the person was trespassing or stealing and so then you won’t be liable.
Not a risk I'd like to take. Even if you're legally in the clear, it doesn't stop people having a go.
Agreed, it would be a massive hassle if you got taken to court I guess (for example).
@WoodYouLikeSomeCash: It doesn't even have to be taken to court.
I have been verbally abused multiple times with people refusing to leave unless I do something (goodness knows what. Actually I have a good idea… $$$) because they don't like the step to my office.
The suite is one of many in a building built in the 60s. My neighbour with a clone of my suite is a lawyer's office.
Nobody ever complains about the step to the lawyers' office. Surprise surprise.
@[Deactivated]: What the F are they smoking when they did so? How is your liability because some steps of the building?
Sound absolute ridiculous
@WhoGiveAShxt: I had a woman come in a few weeks after she apparently came into my office. She had a cracked bone in her leg (wearing cast and all).
Apparently, she didn't notice the step (about 10mm difference and with those yellow caution tapes) and landed hard on her ankle.
I told her to lodge a complaint next door.
@WoodYouLikeSomeCash: You honestly think someone scavenging through bins can afford to retain a lawyer?
But ScoMo says you need to have a go to get a go…
hah. Just try pretending to be a bin raider who has injured yourself while raiding a bin and asking one of those no-win no-fee lawfirms to act on your behalf. Let's see how far you get.
@wylsc i agree. (i'm not a lawyer so take the following with a big grain of salt though):
if the bin is on your property; then its contents are still your property - and they are both trespassing on your property, and stealing your property. to be strictly safe you might put up a 'no trespassers' or 'private property' sign on your gate. if you haven't purchased your own bins then i think they technically belong to the council so i don't know if labelling them has any use.
if the bin has been put out onto public property, or privately owned public property, i.e. the street; its contents are no longer your property, and anyone has the right to take them (private investigators, paparazzi, journalists, and identity thieves do this). but that also logically means that you are no longer responsible for any injury they incur doing so.
an exception would/may be if some of the contents of your bin are illegal, or illegal to dispose of in a curbside collected bin - like dangerous chemicals.Once the bin is on Council land, it becomes Council property.
@twww: I've been to countries where the local council mows the nature strips. But you can be pretty sure they've also factored that cost into the rates.
@bargain huntress: I worked in a recycling yard. A family member owned it. Council has liability. Was funny though, seeing the Garbo's come in and abuse the bin raiders. The bin scabs would have trailers full of cans & bottles ready to cash in, bad luck if they turned up at the same time as the Garbo's, oh the foul language.
The local council even went as far as to get us to not serve the regular I'll call them thieves, but under SA Container Deposit Scheme we weren't allowed to knock back customers with refundable containers no matter who they were. Scrap metal was different…
This was back in the days when the Garbo's got the money directly from the cashed in containers, three blokes to a truck, in the 90's.
If they get injured, you may be liable.
Bins in a public space, not on my land. Councils issue ;)
Councils issue
That'll be a first.
Be careful you and your Council don’t Council each other out…
Plus the council owns the bin (which they'll happily remind you if it suits them).
If they get injured, you may be liable.
Seems fanciful.
This is exactly why I make sure there is nothing sharp in my rubbish e.g. I put broken glass in used take away containers and put a warning sticker on it before binning it.
wow that's a lot of effort. its very courteous - do you really think it's necessary?
Most of them will end up leaving a mess.
Really? Even the herion junkies in the CBD don't make a mess. Their camp-site is a different story.
Eh. Tell that to my physios in Richmond.
Sweeping the needles outside the shaded and shielded entrance is actually part of the staff's job description.
what the? The bin is outside the house and NOT on your property anymore. It's on Council property. Liable my butt.
Jawa's are annoying as…
That's anti-samitic…
On occasion they have entered my locked gate to check my bins. I haven’t been impressed.
They trample the neighbours garden.
I’d leave the recycling next to the fence for them if I had any but the kids save the 10c deposit to go to the show every second year.put up a private property no tresspassing sign. then if they still enter you can call the police.
The bin people are easily startled, but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers.
I’d leave a note, on the bin, saying “containers, with deposits, already cashed”. I agree with the concept of the recycling and, wouldn’t have an issue, if the sods didn’t leave a mess; unfortunately too many do.
that sign is a good idea. someone should sell them.
i assume these people are in a bad way financially - homeless etc?
Nah it's mainly CEOs.
Agree with this. CEO's taking a practice dive at bin raiding before going corporate raiding.
lol
Brand new Hilux - probably not homeless.
Gotta pay for that Hilux somehow.
I'm not in a bad way financially. I do it because I know that our recycling bins are contaminated and will go into landfill. I also try and take the non-recyclables out but the contamination issue isn't confined to just our bins.
who contaminates them?
and isn't everything going to landfill at the moment since china stopped accepting recycling?
If you live in an apartment block, you'll invariably see bags of rubbish in the recycling sooner or later (the rate of occurrence varies).
isn't everything going to landfill at the moment since china stopped accepting recycling?
China wasn't the only place we sent stuff.
I'm pretty sure the metals are at least recycled in Australia.
Most are new residents to the country looking at making a few extra bucks in my area.
Definitely not homeless or financially lacking, yet I've done it myself.
Not exactly raiding bins, but picking up containers which are visible and that are recyclable.
..We do get odd looks from strangers and sometimes our friends question our actions lol.
Those are a thing?
We don't have 10 cent redemptions in Melbourne.South Australia and nt.
First time I went to Adelaide, I was sitting on a park bench and a feral looking man walks up and start rummaging through a bin, while I just sat there shocked. Then I saw another man on a push bike with several full garbage bags attached to it looking in bins.
Then later on I figured it out.
NSW as well for 2 years now.
And Queensland.
Maybe he was thirsty and looking for a bottle that had some dregs left in it.
sa was first by decades. i remember taking emptys with my dad as a little kid - it was very exciting. now in my thirties and they've only just started here in qld.
Don’t know if SA was first. Most states had it decades ago, but dropped due to some tax technicality because the manufacturer was able to write them off somehow. SA was the only state that kept it going. Otherstates have been trying to get it back for years and finally we are getting there.
oh ok
Yeah back in the old days in Victoria you used to get paid by weight, it was something like 75 cents a kilo. Must have been similar in Summer Bay because I remember Alf Stewart went mad when some kids filled the cans with things to make them heavier.
Wish they did
Human bin chickens are widespread in Syd - everyone complains about them!
We have a couple who appear out of nowhere within 5 minutes of our bins being left by the kerbside. They always wait for us to disappear from view back within our property fence lines before they swoop.
Their raid of the recycling bins in our street is super efficient & they don't leave a mess so no complaints from us.
that's an awesome name
please add it to urban dictionary
Maybe be a sign to say no returnable containers in the bin. Like the signs saying, no cash or drugs kept on the premises.
yes someone please start sell one
This is some business idea to talk about after Christmas lunch.
Stop putting the containers in your bin. They’ll work out it’s not worth looking.
This is what I can't figure out.
So NSW (and some other states) have this container deposit scheme to encourage recycling.
When a consumer buys one of the products that is in the scheme, the consumer (effectively) pays the refund amount in the purchase price.But does that actually encourage more containers to be recycled?
If you want your money back you take it to the recycling place. When we were young the soft drink place we bought ours from had a deposit scheme so we, always, took our bottles back for recycling.
I don't know if it encourages more recycling, but it encourages people to take the specific deposited containers to a separate recycling centre rather than just putting them into the bin.
It's not worth the trouble until you have a few hundred containers at least, so we save ours up in big garden waste bags. When our son is old enough we'll make it his job.
It's good for homeless people to make a bit of money collecting them
But does that actually encourage more containers to be recycled?
The evidence appears to say "yes"
https://theconversation.com/container-deposit-schemes-work-s…
Here is the thing - its a popular tax.
The idea being that they add the cost to the container as a tax the producers need to pay to the government, at first there is a big rush on recycling and the government probably loses a little bit of money from also administering the scheme.
But after 6 months when you realise what $2 is worth, and that it's hardly worth the fuel to drive to one of the out of the way collection depots, a good number of people stop bothering with the collection. So for arguments sake, let's assume only 20% of the containers are being recycled.
With 20% the government is still collecting 10c for each bottle, but only having to refund 2c. Consumers aren't angry because they chose to absorb that cost, and drinks manufacturers aren't too annoyed because they all had to increase their prices, thus not giving one company an advantage over another.
To give you an idea of the scale, the QLD & WA scheme has refunded 1,342,662,240 containers according to their website. Assuming that represents 20% of the containers produced thats 6.7BN containers taxed, 6.7BN x $0.08 = $537M in additional profit. My numbers might be out, but the principle remains the same - fat stacks by helping the environment, and nobody will complain.
Why assume 20% are being recycled then use an accurate figure of how many were recycled. You’ve gone to the effort of digging up one fact, but plucked a completely random number out of the air.
How many containers were shouldnt be too hard to find out without making up a huge number like $500mil. In fact the link in the post immediately above yours says:
The 47 CDR schemes recovered an average of 76% of drink containers.
Took me all of 20sec to find without trying and completely obliterates your wild assumption.
@Euphemistic: Why assume? I honestly didn't think people had bothered to do a study.
That's interesting, i guess you got the figures from here:
http://theconversation.com/container-deposit-schemes-work-so…I was surprised SA was so high, that article's link was broken to the SA stuff, but going to the RecycleSA site they actually had some stats:
http://www.recyclesa.com.au/container-deposit-legislation/cd…The return rate for beverage containers in South Australia in 2016–17 was 79.9%.
More than 586.8 million containers (43,298 tonnes) were recovered by collection depots for recycling. This means more than $58 million was refunded to the community during that period.
So I stand corrected. My math should only be that it bought in 72M in SA and refunded 58M (or a 14M gross profit)
If those numbers are the same the QLD & WA scheme only made $33.5M gross profit for those states.
So yeah far less, still profitable, but not as wildly thanks to our recycling efforts.
I just crush all the cans and rip the labels off the bottles before I put them in the bin.
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As long as they don't make a mess.