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Old 24th Oct 2020, 7:03 pm   #21
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Legally, "Skip-diving" is an interesting issue: if someone hires a skip and puts stuff into it with the intention being that a contractor will take-it-away, then if you come along and take stuff you are - technically - committing theft.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13037808

https://palhire.co.uk/skip-diving-is-this-legal/

[Think of it as the reciprocal-function of you hiring a skip and someone-else coming along and dumping their own rubbish in it - in which case they are flytipping and should be prosecuted!]

Personally, I would never take 'stuff' from a skip without first gaining the consent of the skip-hirer. I consider myself a bit above the 'recycling-thieves' that have become an ongoing feature of some parts of the US!

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekl....SCAVENGE.html
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 7:08 pm   #22
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

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Originally Posted by Malcolm G6ANZ View Post
I got my hi fi amp (Akai AM2350) from the council tip. It was on the top of the electrical bin. I spoke to one of the men and said that I had one identical and could I have it for spares. To my surprise he told me to take it away.
I had to replace one of the thick film PA modules and its been working ever since.
A pal of mine kitted out the sound system for the Round Table Christmas sleigh from items scavenged from the council tip. Each year it seemed to get bigger and louder. The pièce de résistance was an enormous speaker cabinet that was pretty much the width of the sleigh.
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 7:30 pm   #23
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Talking of skips, anyone who stayed to the end of the Dunstable Downs radio rally will remember the legendary skip dives.... until they sadly had to stop providing one.

One very pleasant surprise was on returning to the car park after work one day to find a skip containing a working Reslo ribbon mike and cable.

30 years ago Coventry Council arranged to collect anything put out onto the pavement on a specific day. The catch was that once on the pavement anything there belonged to the council and could not be removed except by the council’s contractors. However I have a friend who walked the local streets on the appropriate night and returned home with a couple of tape recorders......

Peter
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 7:49 pm   #24
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

About 30 years ago while walking to the local registry office to arrange the wedding with my now wife I passed a skip outside of a local radio station Radio Stoke
On looking into the aforementioned unit i found a lot of radio equipment which after asking in the station I rescued still have some of it in the garage
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 8:09 pm   #25
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

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Originally Posted by Reelman View Post
One very pleasant surprise was on returning to the car park after work one day to find a skip containing a working Reslo ribbon mike and cable.

Peter
That's a lucky find, I wouldn't mind putting one of them on a shelf.

I don't need to do skip dives, people keep bringing stuff here instead, on one occasion, a Hi-fi setup was offered to me but was turned down on the basis of struggling to get the door open, if you know what I mean.

Let's talk about Wrexham council's amenity site, no one dares to take anything from the electrical skip, the workers are hovering not too far away! Plenty of Dyson's in there, I could make a fortune selling them online!
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 8:38 pm   #26
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Facism lives on your local Council site! Most of the incredibly expensive tipping problems [very prominent here in the South East] could be solved by returning open free access to tips as per decades ago but LA's find it more "efficient" to farm services out to Private Companys who often treat their employers [ie ourselves] like criminals. The Councils have handed over all control [easy option] and dumped us!

I've recalled that next door to my future wife's flat [over an Estate Agents] in Prestwich Manchester was a Company that did product promotions using electronic aids, like those projection booths that showed a continuous loop of 35mm film onto a TV type back projection screen. Tractors in the one that I finally sold to a delighted chap at one of the Elvaston Castle Rallies held at Derby in the 1980's.

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Old 24th Oct 2020, 9:04 pm   #27
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

My Pye Black Box came from the council tip via one of the operatives who lives across the road. He wanted £20 pocket money which I gladly paid as it was a 1955 model and very tidy.
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 9:05 pm   #28
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Quote:
Originally Posted by dave walsh View Post
Facism lives on your local Council site! Most of the incredibly expensive tipping problems [very prominent here in the South East] could be solved by returning open free access to tips as per decades ago but LA's find it more "efficient" to farm services out to Private Companys who often treat their employers [ie ourselves] like criminals. The Councils have handed over all control [easy option] and dumped us!

Dave
Please stay on topic no further discussion about the way amenities are run.

It's getting political

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Last edited by Cobaltblue; 24th Oct 2020 at 9:07 pm. Reason: added quote
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 9:17 pm   #29
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Our local house clearance place is the best skip around here. They don't mind what you take as it saves them room in the skip.
Over the last couple of years I have had a working Sony midi HI fi with speakers, a few portable TV sets, a Pye K30 and best of all a Decca 30! I haven't had a telly for a while now as they have realised there is a market for them now for gamers, but it's always worth a look!
I remember when I was at secondary school a friend told me he had passed a skip on the way to school that had a couple of old TV sets in it, this would have been 72/73 he promised that after school he would show me where it.
As soon as school finished we went off on a mission to retrieve them...
When we got to the skip it had been completely filled with bricks and rubble!
Rich.
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 9:29 pm   #30
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

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Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
Schools and colleges are notorious for dumping large amounts of WEEE in skips, for a mixture of cultural and funding reasons. They are normally very strict about scavenging though.
I can't, for the life of me, understand why schools would care. I can't see why it would be anything to do with H&S - surely, if you take something out of a skip (or off someone's wall) without seeking authority or enquiring about it's condition, then you yourself are responsible if it's unsafe to use. Whether or not it's theft (ie, who has "title" to the item) is a different issue and might be quite complicated to resolve. It must involve "intention" - there's a difference between an old tuner put into a skip and a wallet dropped into it by accident.

I suppose it might be to do with the contract between the school and the waste contractor, which might stipulate that anything put into the skip becomes the waste contractor's property.

Mike
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 9:44 pm   #31
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

It's to do with waste disposal regs, which public sector bodies are extremely keen to follow. Basically there has to be an audit trail from the body creating the waste to the point at which it ceases to exist. This is the real reason why council recycling contractors all appear to be 'jobsworths', 'fascists', 'petty' etc.

If schools and colleges want to sell items rather than dispose of them as waste, they have to get involved with a wholly different set of regulations and liabilities, and they don't have the resources to deal with that.

The purpose of all this waste disposal regulation is to discourage flytipping, though it's not been very successful in that regard.
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 9:57 pm   #32
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

I'm trying to stop myself from looking in the WEEE cage and the skip at work because there are too many tempting items! The (communications) company moved to a new building at the start of the year and an awful lot of stuff has been thrown out during this process as the new building is slightly smaller than the group of buildings it has replaced. There is less space to store clutter in the new place. I salvaged a few items of test gear back in January but I've tried to avoid looking in there since because there really is a huge amount of stuff being disposed of as each of the old buildings is finally vacated.

From a legal point of view I have to fill in basic form allowing me to take each item home. It isn't as simple as taking it without asking. Sometimes the equipment has been returned from Keysight or Tektronix with a huge repair quote and sometimes it is declared obsolete through lack of use. It gets a bit like saving a puppy each time I see an unloved scope or sig gen staring back at me from the WEEE cage. I used to try and save the nicer models but I now only save what I think I have a genuine need for.

I suspect that things are similar at other companies and because of this the real price/value of old test gear is much lower than the inflated prices seen on ebay.
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 10:15 pm   #33
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

I'm a bit rusty on the legal aspects of it at work but that last time I asked it was explained to me something like this:

If the item has any net value then the transfer from the company to the individual implies a warranty and this is open to (mis)interpretation. Therefore, the company will much prefer to dispose of the item through a contractor as this removes any risk of being sued if the item fails or if it causes damage or injury.

If the item can be declared to be of no value (eg BER test equipment) then it is possible to fill in a form and this transfers the ownership to the individual with no warranty or other means to complain legally if something goes wrong. This is even the case if the item is faulty and catches fire or the new owner manages to injure themselves using it or transporting it.

I'm not sure if I've remembered it correctly but it was something like the above...
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 10:57 pm   #34
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

When a _company_ is disposing of 'stuff' it gets complex: in times-past I developed a 2-40MHz RF linear-amp on a contract basis - and my client was able to offset pretty-much all the costs of the development work against their corporate taxes.
This was contingent on none of the prototypes/development-units being sold (if a single one of them was sold then the entire R&D tax-offset thing imploded).
I personally 'rendered unusable with a lump-hammer' the first ten prototype amplifiers, with zero regrets.
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 11:04 pm   #35
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Thanks Mike [post 28*] I appreciate direct contact/guidance. It's always a fine line

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Old 24th Oct 2020, 11:08 pm   #36
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

In the case of the components etc liberated from the school skip I spoke with the science department and after that I got first refusal on anything electronic related before they were disposed of. I even made a small donation, probably went towards the teachers' Christmas meal!

Said school is currently being demolished whilst they build a newer one next door. Accompanying this new building is all brand new equipment in the design and technology workshops so, more recently, they have been selling off tools etc. It was all three phase so no good for home but we bought quite a few bits of kit for work. It's nice that not everything just goes to waste although they did say it wasn't easy getting processes set up to sell things. It's very strange now using tools at work which I used at school over ten years ago!
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Old 24th Oct 2020, 11:30 pm   #37
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

You can get around three phase tools by either changing the motor or using a single phase to three phase inverter. You get variable speed, controlled acceleration and DC braking if the panic switch is hit.

There are also tricks involving a larger three phase motor running as a phase splitter aided and abetted by some capacitors.

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Old 24th Oct 2020, 11:52 pm   #38
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

Quote:
Unfortunately for me, it seems that skips ain't what they used to be...
I tend to agree. Even if you do find something it's modern "rubbish". I think earlier comments re. online sales platforms may have something to do with it.

I was looking at the "sold as spares/ non working" test equipment on eBay recently and was staggered at the prices, and began to wonder if an un-intended consequence of all those wonderful on-line videos of clever folk repairing stuff has increased demand?

Quote:
It's to do with waste disposal regs, which public sector bodies are extremely keen to follow. Basically there has to be an audit trail from the body creating the waste to the point at which it ceases to exist. This is the real reason why council recycling contractors all appear to be 'jobsworths', 'fascists', 'petty' etc.

If schools and colleges want to sell items rather than dispose of them as waste, they have to get involved with a wholly different set of regulations and liabilities, and they don't have the resources to deal with that.

The purpose of all this waste disposal regulation is to discourage flytipping, though it's not been very successful in that regard.
Yes, but if people take anything from skips they obviously want it. If they use it themselves it keeps it from being dumped. If they sell it, it keeps it from being dumped.
Why would anyone remove stuff from a skip and flytip it five minutes later?
The stuff is being re-purposed or it's life extended. they are only doing what Freecycle does, only on an "informal" basis.
Even better if it's repaired and used again, or parts used to fix something else.
That's a good thing surely?
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Last edited by Tim; 25th Oct 2020 at 12:05 am.
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 12:47 am   #39
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

During the coventry rubbish amnesty a few of us found at least a dozen televisions on the streets locally, a couple of working sets were kept and the rest put back out for the morning. Our hunter gathering was curtailed when queues of like minded people turned up and the police started patrolling the increasing piles of stuff
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Old 25th Oct 2020, 1:18 am   #40
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Default Re: Skip Useful Finds

I found a valve tape recorder in a waste paper bin on the street a couple of years ago.
Safety police have indeed spoiled a lot of the picking over waste.
I once watched a guy dragging a lawn mower out of a pile of fly tipped fridges in an unmetalled lane when I lived in Hampshire.
Last time I took a fridge to the tip I stopped off at work on the way and used my key to go in and get the sack barrow. I overtook about 20 cars and got told off by the rubbish police for not taking it in a car. I answered back by politely telling them that they needed to do something about the queuing.
How on earth do you get rid of a duff fridge if you do not own a car?
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