Charity Bins - Rubbish left outside - is it legal or not to take it?

It is sorted and collected by the charities, even the items that are left outside.

As a side note, what has low income mother of 3 got to do with it. Theft is still theft. I am a full time mother of 3, and I work. How about you give that a try, you will have more money, and won’t have the time to pilfer through charity donations.

There was a BBQ on a trolley sitting outside the charity bins at my local shops. It was filthy with a thick layer of grease and a sock. We figured a charity wouldn’t have the time to clean it to sellable standards so my sister decided to add it to her moving-out collection. We put the BBQ in the back of my little car, leaving the trolley behind. In the two minutes it took us to drive home, unload the BBQ and come back for the trolley, it had disappeared.

To the OP, if you really need a good hand out and feel the need to take stuff from bins –
Go shopping at Garage sales. My entire family recently got together and had a massive sale trying to get rid of old stuff we didn’t need anymore. We threw out the junk and tried to sell the rest. We ended up donating approx 10 large garbage bags full of girls and ladies clothes that we struggled to give away. Our offer was to fill a bag for $5. Take whatever you wanted.

Frankly I dont care if you take stuff from outside the bins – go for it, stops the charity staff taking home all the good stuff or them trying to sell you a $5 tshirt for $20.

IMO I think charity bins should be removed from outside shopping centres. Force people to have to go to the op shops to donate. Might cut back on dumping and save them the millions in dumping fees they pay each year. After all that money is better spent elsewhere.
Years and years ago Kippax had the bins INSIDE the centre, stopped after hours dumping. And would it kill shopping centres to allow the charities to maybe set up a dumping ground once a month for free or a local hall. The staff can sort everything there and then. Heck I’d volunteer if I was free. Saves having to sort through stinky soaked bags from the bins.

These bins are an eyesore. It drives me nuts to see crap dumped in and around them.

While they are a good idea in principle, more often than not people use them as a way to avoid paying for a trip to the tip. Good luck to you if you find anything useful around them I reckon.

They need to be emptied more often or people need to stop being lazy and take the goods that don’t fit into them directly to the charity or the tip.

Only ‘rubbish’ in the public domain (your bin on the footpath, things you throw down the tip) can be legally rifled through by anyone. The clothing bins are not rubbish bins and even though the items may not be in the bins, they could legally be argued as being placed there with the intent of being donated goods and therefore not rubbish….but as someone above mentioned, who’s going to dob you in? If you are going to rifle through them, just do it on any day except Sunday, as that’s the day I stake out the bins to watch for people like you and dob them in..

Anyone who has a problem with a mother of three sifting through stuff dumped outside a bin needs a solid fourbytwo to the head. I’m willing to donate it.

As some other people have mentioned, join the Yahoo group freecyclecanberra . It’s a good source of free stuff in Canberra.

Allclassifieds.com.au is also a good bet for cheap stuff, as well as the Canberra Times TightArse Tuesday, also known as the Under $100 Classifieds.

It is ileagal to take things from outside the bins, but if you go to these shops on a monday for tuesday they are discounted, also there are charitys that you can go to to get cheap food, if you have a card from centrelink, there is one at Charmwood christion centre, to join you pay $2.00 and one out at Belconnen, St Pauls, same type of deal with the $2.00 but it is cheaper still, for a hand help basket full they go by the weight of the basket, which is really very cheap, fruit and vegies are free, also bread, and they have some clothes and things for nothing, they put on lunch, all home cooked for nothing. The people there are very nice, but you need to get there early, eg: 9.30am to get the best pick.

I don’t know the legal answer, but I generally feel ok about people taking stuff left near charity bins before the gear gets trashed.

However, to those who pick through the gear looking for stuff to eBay, may a plague of lice infest them.

Judging by what’s left near the charity bins that I see regularly, I’d say many people just use them as a convenient dumping ground and don’t care whether charity can use the stuff or not. They’re just avoiding paying to get rid of the rubbish they can’t fit in their own wheelie bins.

I use freecycle mostly as I prefer my unwanted things go to those who can use them and may not be able to afford them. The things freecyclers don’t want either get dropped off at charity shops or sent to landfill, depending on whether I think charities would sell them.

uninformed jackass said :

Uhh, those bins arent emptied at the dump by charities, they’re picked up, cleaned, and re-sold in op shops.

So no, you shouldn’t steal from charities.

The question is about goods dumped illegally outside the charity bin.

The question is a good one, while there might not be anything technically illegal about picking up goods dumped outside the bin, I don’t think most people would think much of you for taking things left for charity.

Just take it. Better that you freecycle it than pay some charity to run a bunch of shops and hire paid staff to sit in an office and do the administration.