Woman Arrested After Taking Thrown Out Food

reply to post by ANOK

In a capitalist system money and profit is more important than people.

Capitalists keep prices high by artificial scarcity of resources, under production and destruction of unsold goods.

It is not in their best interest to let people take the unsold resources as this will lead to less profits. There is as many resources destroyed, for one reason or another, than are sold.

Omigod:shk: Which Economics school did you go to?

Capitalism says nothing of the sort.

And for those of you blaming the vendors like Tesco or Home Depot, think about it: how would it benefit them from making waste products unusable or having the pickers arrested?

Answer: it doesn't!

The laws are made by the legislatures. People are so litigation happy that they will file suit if they are harmed by these throw away products.

The vendors are forced to do what they do to protect themselves from lawsuits. But they don't make the laws.

Health regulations forbid distributing food to the public after certain events, like expire dates or loss of power.

reply to post by TV_Nation


Wtf??? How can this be theft by finding? She purchased the case! I was now hers.

Personally, I wouldn't have deposited the money, if I were her. No one would have known.

reply to post by phantom150


I agree about the legal issue. However alot of companies still donate as their moral obligation far out weighs any legal one's. We have both seen how bad the Floods have been in Oz. I bet that all those that feed the needy then, didn't care about being sued. Why is ok to hand out food then and not ok now? Doesn't seem right to me. Also why cant we just get the homeless or the charities to sign legally binding documents that waives their writes to sue. Ive signed such forms just to go play paintball. So we can do things if we try. My grandmothr, my mother have hand over countless meals to the homeless around Newcastle for decades. Not once did think of or cared about being sued. WE need to start caring more about the things that really matter.

This is quite an old practice. In 1970 I worked for one summer as a pot washer at a hospital in the kitchens. At the end of each day, they would throw out all leftovers which include things like roast beef and ham. In fact it was me that had to put it down a giant garbage disposal in an outbuilding every day.

We were told right up front if caught taking any home we would be fired. They explained that it was a requirement of their Insurer to avoid law suits.

After a couple of weeks one of the Cooks let me know there was a way around it. She knew I was saving for College and could use the extra food. I had to go to the my supervisor and ask for a Dog Food Permit. They actually had a permit form, issued by the State of California for that purpose. I had to sign a document that the food I took was for my Dog and that it would not be eaten by a person. I never had to buy another ounce of meat the rest of the time I worked there. The meat was fresh from that days meals and as it was a private hospital the quality was very good.

Litigious people are the cause of huge costs to everyone in nearly everything we buy. People who cause the frivolous law suits and the ambulance chasers who service them should be hated by everyone, but society seems to treat them like Hero's. Between sue happy people and thieves, the cost of everything we buy is raised by a significant amount.

Those who blame the companies for obeying the laws and the wishes of their insurers are likely the same jerks filing the frivolous law suits and driving up costs. I watched a woman about 25 years ago sue for and win $650,000.00 from her employer for cutting the very tip of her little finger off. Not even to the fingernail and all it did was leave a small scar at the tip. A jury gave it too her because she cried on the stand and claimed it caused Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. That was in Portland, Oregon. The business had to close down and lay off the other employees. She should have been jailed along with her attorney and the members of the Jury. Get a group of illiterate Jurors and you can get anything in a Civil Court.

Most people have common sense and decency, but the few who don't, cost the rest of us plenty.

I honestly can't figure out why a law isn't passed to allows the homeless(needy) to collect discarded food while still protecting the business from litigation, sort of like the good samaritan law that protects a person from getting sued for damages incurred in the process of saving a life. It would make too much sense I guess.

That or those officers who arrested her must truly feel like heroes for keeping the world safe.

How can they as a human being not realize that this act is lower than the alleged criminal's acts whom they arrest?

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective

And in todays "world gone completely insane" news...

This is another story which shows what a truly mad world we live in.

People are increasingly going jobless and hungry, and not only is this company WASTING tons of food, but someone gets ARRESTED for trying to feed themselves with some of this food which had been discarded, and laying on the street?!?

Our 'modern' society is absolutely mentally ill and bass ackwards to the nth degree...There is something so wrong with this on SO many levels I can't even wrap my head around it...

www.financenews.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

edit on 12-2-2011 by DimensionalDetective because: (no reason given)

"..wasting tons of food,.." - read what you posted. food was tossed after a power cutoff = spoiled food.

"Our 'modern' society is absolutely mentally ill.. " - you have obviously never spent time in a mental health ward.

As a single mum with handicapped kids, I put myself through college on a pension by getting most of our food from the supermarket dumpsters. Knowing it was illegal I was pretty careful, and had a black "ninja" suit and backpack specially for my nightly excursions.

Doing that meant I could get off the pension and work, once I got my qualifications, and become a contributor to society instead of a burden.

* La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain. - Anatole France

* The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


Someday very, very soon, it will become a punishable offence to breath...lol

Though this woman would'nt have been arrested for stealing from the food company, she would have been arrested for stealing from the government.

By throwing it away and placing it on the naturestrip outside their Home/Business, they are giving up the right of ownership and that right then goes to the local government (strange but true)...!!!

If someone pickes it up, they are stealing from the local Council.

Same rules apply here in AU, during collecton weeks (we have about 4 per year). People discard stuff they don't want outside their homes and local council pickes it up and re-sells it at outlook shops.

Removing cool stuff from these piles can get you arrested for "stealing by finding"...

Once discarded, all items are government property.

I remember a story here, where a woman had acidentl discarded a valuble item with one of these collections, she had discarded it in her own pile outside her own home and was arrested and fined for trying to retrieve it from her own junk. Reason ? It was council property and she was stealing her own items...lol

However, this dose not include perishable items, so how the police could justify their actions here goes beyond any reasoning I can come up with.

Originally posted by TV_Nation

Originally posted by ramuh
So I guess"Freeganism"hasn't caught on where you live? There are families out there that get most if not all their food this way. I saw a program on TV a few months ago about a group of Freegans in New York that go around to grocery stores and bakeries after they close and go through the garbage ,and find amazing amounts of perfectly good food .freegan.info...

edit on 12-2-2011 by ramuh because: (no reason given)

Freeganism is a pretty cool practice I watched a lot of videos about it on Youtube and I was shocked by the amount of perfectly good food that was thrown away. I was even more shocked when I found out that the biggest offenders of throwing away edible food was stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joes considering they act like they are out to save the planet and all that mumbo jumbo.

I was really thinking about going dumpster diving to see what it was all about but never worked up the nerve to actually do it.

The problem with Freeganism is that they all give away their goods and money prior to becoming a Freegan and scavanging for food etc! WTF is that all about?

Scavange for resources for sure. But don't give up your other resources like money out of spite. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face...

This reminds me of a story I'd heard about the Great Depression;
I don't remember if it was at grocery stores or at the farms, but businessmen where pouring kerosine on top of any extra produce they couldn't sell to "inspire people to buy the food."

There were people close to starving...

We probably spend more money on the FBI to go after illegal music downloaders, than we spent investigating the Trillion-dollar bank shenanigans.

This is serious, according to my favorite reading material (the Brothers Grim) Britan is full of witches!

So how do we know this woman is not a witch, and did not cast some spell to make the power go out, just so Tesco would thow away the food so she could come by and get it.

Are we going to stand for all these infernal godless occultists and witchcraft now?

I say we burn her at the stake and make an example of her, so other witches don't try this too!

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


this is what the world has come to... i just don't understand it anymore. ridiculous.

so pathetic. its not even shame on the company, its shame on the cops. how can they really arrest someone for trying to eat? ive seen cops let people go for WAY worse stuff than EATING!!
complete, absolute shame

Those police men should be ashamed. I hope they are disowned everytime they show their faces in public.

Theft by finding!!? wow so much for picking up lucky pennies on the street! I suppose next there will be "theft by smelling" followed by "theft by looking".

Get me out of this matrix!

The cops were probably saving her from being poisoned with all of that junk food. Who's to say that she wasn't going to sell it instead of eating it all herself?

When I see a story such as this, it almost makes me depressed. Because how retarded does a cop have to be to arrest a person for eating food from the street? If I saw those cops in real life I would tell them to their face that they are the dumbest pieces of trash I've seen in my life. To be honest I could care less if they were shot and killed by the woman. Arresting a hungry person for scavenging thrown out food scraps, is hands down one of the most illogical disgusting mindless injustices I've heard in a while. I hope there's more to the story behind this because if not, please strip these cops of their badge and beat the pulp out of them; fools such as this are polluting the gene pool and need to be sterilized.

while I believe you give up ownership of what you throw out, I do know some areas look at dumpsterdiving as a bad thing.

my brother and me had to always keep an eye out for cops or security guards when we went through mall and college dumpsters for anything good (good usually being discarded computer components that only needed a quick solderng job, coverless paperbacks from the bookstore, the occasional nerf gun, we found a very nice clock once, and when timed right, could get a month's supply of individually wrapped food, great for the poor college budget).

it depends largely on the area, the town I currently live in, the cops really don't care, and aside from occasional stores chaining their dumpsters (usually just better to avoid those as destroying property will get you arrested), it's not hard to get a good haul.


but arresting a homeless woman for taking discarded food is a load of bull

Originally posted by kaleshchand

Originally posted by TV_Nation

On the other hand if it was me I would not have banked it.

me neither, i'd of found some safe place to stow it

Originally posted by mysterioustranger
I worked at a large mid-western University Hospital on campus. They would cut the ends off hams, roasts, cheese blocks and throw those away. Also they would thaw out say 72 chicken breasts but only cook 40. Yep. You guessed it. Throw the other 32 thawed breasts out. Rolls. pies, breads, deserts, buns etc. Over what they needed each day? Thrown in trash. Some would get picked up by a food bank, but the majority tossed.

Now, If anyone went into the trash and unwrapped those hams and turkey and cheese ends (a couple pounds or more at least each one)or took those rolls? It was considered stealing and I could be fired.

Guess what? I got home buns, and cheese ends, and hams and 36...THIRTY SIX chicken breasts (which had to be cooked right away at home ie; baking, broiling, barbecuing, shredding because they were already thawed)...but I did, and gave it all to a few families and college friends living with us in a large campus rooming house.

Hey. It was over 10 years ago, so screw them. I put all that into a gym bag and tried not to slump over on the way to the bus which I road and then walked home.

It is an absolute crime that woman got into any trouble. If its in the garbage... today...you can be fired for stealing from the employer. Good or not. Thats absolutely shameful........

For the most part, it comes down to, don't get caught. I've had good meals from discarded food in my college days, when I often had maybe $1 to my name. I just managed to do it frequently, and not get caught.

Originally posted by zooplancton
this has irked me for a long time.
20 years ago I used to work at walmart as a 2nd job so I could pay for my phone card and skiing.

I was told to pour motor oil over the expired various foods and chocolates from see's candies in the dumspter.
I never got it. why can't this go to people whom can get a tiny bit of desparate substance from this.... so f'ing sad... I hope we DO get to experienice a major "event" so that the tptb get to take this all into perspective...

I worked at a walmart and was told likewise, never did it, usually took it home, and never got fired, I gave my 2 weeks during one of their evaluations to go work as a chef for awhile

edit on 13-2-2011 by Gren because: (no reason given)