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Originally posted by TheShroudOfMemphis
Any new estates being built in a neighbouring town?
This sounds like something Shelbyville would do!
Originally posted by turbokid
So maybe the city is actually taking down its own poles and claiming they were stolen, so they can install new ones and keep their cushy budget.. ???
Originally posted by warpboost
Turbokid, very interesting theory which I will take to the next level. Maybe the street crew guys or the local politicans are running a scam. They take the poles down, claim they were stolen and need to be replaced. They get the funds for new poles which they just pocket and then put the same old poles back up and claim they are the new ones they had to buy as replacements
Originally posted by 1jaguar
maybe the farmers figured out a new way to jack deer...
Wasted light from North America's cities
As one can see, ba lighting habits have spread light pollution to virtually every corner of US, even to the "dark skies" in the SW USA, place of Americas main Northern Hemisphere inland astronomical observatories.
Faint stars disappear, only the Moon and the brightest planets stars remain visible. If the night is cloudy, the light pollution effects are striking. The clouds are red and bright and one could read the newspaper at the light reflected by the clouds. So much amount is uselessly pumped toward the skies that the reflected light is enough for a decent illumination. The waste is enormous. At a fraction of the cost, we could have good design lamps with lower power which can provide the same illumination.
Originally posted by loam
They are being removed by a company who hopes to have a contract to replace them...
A builder has taken them to cut cost in a construction project elsewhere...
A skilled group of disgruntled former employees trying to get even with their employer associated with the installation of these lights...
Originally posted by tiddly54
i would say it is some kids, 15- 25 having fun stealing street poles.
[trimmed quote]
so that my theory. 3 or 4 guys having a laugh stealling street poles
Originally posted by loam
They are being removed by a company who hopes to have a contract to replace them...
How hot are metals? Thieves are stealing lamp posts
Washington — It's the caper that has baffled Baltimore. Someone has stolen 130 hulking aluminum light poles in broad daylight — each weighing about 115 kilograms, measuring nine metres tall and stuffed with live electrical wires.
The real mystery isn't who did it. It's why it took so long for one of the fastest-growing crime schemes on the planet to reach Baltimore.
Thanks in large part to China's voracious appetite for resources, the soaring prices of nearly all base metals — aluminum, copper and even steel — have unleashed what can only be described as a scrap metal theft pandemic.
That's why Belgium's main railway station recently lost 770 of its 800 luggage carts and police in the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire are still hunting for the thieves who made off with 30 manhole covers last spring.
Prices for aluminum and copper have more than doubled in the past couple of years, and are now setting near-daily record highs. Prices in the $85-billion (U.S.) global scrap metal trade are up even more, tripling since 2003.
And the scrap metal crime spree has tracked that upward trajectory every step of the way.
Lamp posts and manhole covers aren't even the most unusual items to go missing — 400 parking meters have been yanked from roadsides in Pittsburgh. Thieves are making off with just about everything they can lay their hands on — copper wiring from homes, aluminum siding, phone booths, fire extinguishers, traffic lights, street signs, ladders and even the kitchen sink.
“Baltimore has a lot of crime problems, but this is the strangest one of all,” admitted Chip Franklin, a radio talk show host at WBAL in that city. “Baltimore is a great city and we have great criminals too.”
That the crime wave would hit Baltimore isn't all that surprising. The city has one of the largest ports on the U.S. East Coast, and much of the stolen scrap ends up in foreign countries — most notably China.
China's booming economy has triggered extraordinary demand for all types of raw materials, particularly those used to build infrastructure. China is now among the world's largest consumers of copper, steel and aluminum. This year, the country is expected to buy roughly a third of the world's steel and account for 80 per cent of the growth in demand.
Much, much more....
Last year, 24,000 manhole covers were pilfered in Beijing alone.
Originally posted by Hal9000
You would think, after a few thousand, they would weld chains to them or something to keep them from being stolen.
Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Originally posted by Hal9000
You would think, after a few thousand, they would weld chains to them or something to keep them from being stolen.
Most manhole covers, at least in Detroit, are welded down with tack welds. They're fairly easy to break though.