Hippies charged with stealing food from a skip

PizzamanIRL · 29-01-2014 12:15PM

If anyone should be prosecuted it should be Iceland for throwing out edible food.

osarusan · 29-01-2014 12:30PM

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

If anyone should be prosecuted it should be Iceland for throwing out edible food.

This line of thinking is a bit silly.

Should you be prosecuted for throwing some of your food scraps in the kitchen bin after dinner?

29-01-2014 12:31PM

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

If anyone should be prosecuted it should be Iceland for throwing out edible food.

Even when it's within date and still on the shelves, Iceland's food isn't edible.

That poor guy must have been desperate.

the groutch · 29-01-2014 12:33PM

anncoates wrote: »

I think they can't give away out of date food for health and safety reasons (don't know why: presumably somebody could sue them if they got food poisoning maybe).

this pretty much sums it up, the compo culture has ruined it for everyone.
but like it or not, even if the food is not being sold, as long as it's on their property they still own it, theft is theft.

TwoShedsJackson · 29-01-2014 12:34PM

osarusan wrote: »

This line of thinking is a bit silly.

Should you be prosecuted for throwing some of your food scraps in the kitchen bin after dinner?

There might be a slight difference between a few scraps of meat or veg being scraped off a plate, and perfectly fine, uncooked/unopened food being thrown out when it could be taken and used by somebody.

c68zapdsm5i1ru · 29-01-2014 01:01PM

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

There might be a slight difference between a few scraps of meat or veg being scraped off a plate, and perfectly fine, uncooked/unopened food being thrown out when it could be taken and used by somebody.

The problem is they're no longer allowed give unused food to charities for the homeless or shelters and they're also not allowed sell food that's past it's best before date. Legally they've no option but to throw it out. It's totally ridiculous, but health and safety around food has gone a bit OTT in my opinion. I often eat stuff that's perfectly fine but is a few days out of date. But lots of people will immediately throw it in the bin even though it looks and smells fine.

--Kaiser-- · 29-01-2014 01:11PM

I used to work in a convenience store during college and anything that was even an hour out of date was counted, recorded and then moved into the back room to be discarded. I'm not ashamed to admit I took some of this food home with me

jimgoose · 29-01-2014 01:12PM

chopper6 wrote: »

Web designers arent usually starving to death.

He's probably more of a self-facilitating media node. Anyway, it's a pure solid disgrace the amount of perfectly decent food that's wasted in the developed world. I would have thought the mighty forces of Law and Justice had better things to do.

chopper6 · 29-01-2014 01:23PM

jimgoose wrote: »

He's probably more of a self-facilitating media node..

he looks like a smug prick anyway.

We dont know if he's been previously warned to stay away from the area due to his trespassing or whatever he was doing.

I just feel it's unlikely he would actually be prosecuted for a first offense of scabbing a bit of rotten food.

guppy · 29-01-2014 01:33PM

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

I've 2 good friends in London who live off food they find at the back of supermarkets and they generally eat stuff that's obviously not gone off like canned food, fruit and veg in decent nick etc. Often stuff is thrown out because the wrapping is torn but the contents are in date. I stayed with one of them a few years ago and was surprised by the stuff they found. All of it in perfect condition.

Boxes of frozen food could well be dodgy though and risky to eat but declaring that they've no dignity or are free-loading is a load of bollocks; the food was going to be thrown out anyway.

In this case it's probably risky as Iceland sells mostly frozen food (correct me if I'm wrong here) but morally, I can't see anything wrong with it all.

But if your friends had gone in and paid for that food, it wouldnt need to be thrown out. Its a vicious circle. Why don't we all just scavenge sure? The food not sold would be thrown out anyway after all.

Big Tom Mainliner · 29-01-2014 01:33PM

I can't imagine that peoples only option was to steal food... We live in an era of very generous state supports and welfare. No one in the UK, and especially Ireland is so hard up that tbey can't eat...

Fair enough if supermarkets want to donate to charity, and have it strictly regulated to prevent distribution or resale. But thinking its ok for some anti-establishment type to go scrounging around private property and rooting around bins like a Possum is madness!

dyeti · 29-01-2014 01:36PM

I used to do this regularly when I was living off a €10er a week in Galway. I'd cycle to Supervalu or Dunnes (the westside one for any of you Galwegians here) after hours and have a rummage through. Most of the time I would come back with rice, tea, salt, spices & herbs, yogurt, chocolate, sweets, cakes, tinned fruit and veg, etc... once I even found 12 in date cans of Heineken, sound! I don't eat meat myself but I would always bring back packs of rashers and sausages (there was ****ing LOADS of them) to my friends who lived with me who would then merrily cook them and either eat them or refridgerate them for later eating!

I really don't see a problem with - perfectly fine free food is perfectly fine free food

Lapin · 29-01-2014 01:43PM

Frank Black wrote: »

How do you know the food being thrown out is 'perfectly edible'? - what information do you have on the food and how did you come by it?

From the article - "The total value of the items taken allegedly amounted to £33 and they were of low value, consisting of tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and Mr Kipling cakes".

I credit the those charged with taking the food from the skip with the intelligence to decipher whether it was edible or not.

Why would they take food that wasn't ?

Legs.Eleven · 29-01-2014 01:44PM

guppy wrote: »

But if your friends had gone in and paid for that food, it wouldnt need to be thrown out. Its a vicious circle. Why don't we all just scavenge sure? The food not sold would be thrown out anyway after all.

What if they didn't have the money to pay for it?

Supermarkets will always have more stock than they sell, so there'll always be leftovers.

bodice ripper · 29-01-2014 01:46PM

I have a couple of friends that feed themselves this way. They eat very well.

the groutch · 29-01-2014 01:47PM

Lapin wrote: »

From the article - "The total value of the items taken allegedly amounted to £33 and they were of low value, consisting of tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and Mr Kipling cakes".

I credit the those charged with taking the food from the skip with the intelligence to decipher whether it was edible or not.

Why would they take food that wasn't ?

and how long was that cheese sitting in the bins unrefridgerated?
1 hr? 5 hours? 3 days?

Big Tom Mainliner · 29-01-2014 01:48PM

Lapin wrote: »

From the article - "The total value of the items taken allegedly amounted to £33 and they were of low value, consisting of tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and Mr Kipling cakes".

I credit the those charged with taking the food from the skip with the intelligence to decipher whether it was edible or not.

Why would they take food that wasn't ?

If they spend their time rummaging through bins to save a few bob, I wouldn't credit them with that much intelligence to be fair.

Oranage2 · 29-01-2014 01:50PM

Lapin wrote: »

From the article - "The total value of the items taken allegedly amounted to £33 and they were of low value, consisting of tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese and Mr Kipling cakes".

I credit the those charged with taking the food from the skip with the intelligence to decipher whether it was edible or not.

Why would they take food that wasn't ?

Why? You can only assume that these guys are of questionable mental health if they're looking for food in bins.

Karl Stein · 29-01-2014 01:51PM

A total waste of police time, court time and tax-payers money trying to make criminals out of people for taking food bound for landfill. How much is this potential prosecution going to cost? Thousands of pounds?

The same busy-body freaks complaining about this victimless 'crime' are the ones who'd be on the blower to Joe Duffy whining about the costs of public services.

My name is URL · 29-01-2014 01:52PM

£33 worth of food taken from a bin in England and it's worthy of outrage and a thread here?

What a load of nonsense

Muise... · 29-01-2014 01:52PM

anncoates wrote: »

I think they can't give away out of date food for health and safety reasons (don't know why: presumably somebody could sue them if they got food poisoning maybe).

I remember working in a restaurant years ago and it was heartbreaking seeing unused food being thrown out (into a caged bin) at the end of the night when there were no doubt people in shelters or on the streets that could have eaten it.

Restaurants should keep pigs to eat the scrapings from customers' plates. They'd get savage pork in return, so win-win. Food not served that would not keep till the next day could easily be donated at the end of the night IMO.

uch · 29-01-2014 01:52PM

If one of these crusty's slipped on something while trespassing they would be the first to put in claim, so I don't see the issue with charging them for trespass and stealing.

Oranage2 · 29-01-2014 01:56PM

uch wrote: »

If one of these crusty's slipped on something while trespassing they would be the first to put in claim, so I don't see the issue with charging them for trespass and stealing.

Exactly, how would people feel about 3 men jumping over your back wall and rummaging through your Willie bin for waste?

I know It's a big corporation but they have rights like you and me.

RDM_83 again · 29-01-2014 01:58PM

dyeti wrote: »

I don't eat meat myself but I would always bring back packs of rashers and sausages (there was ****ing LOADS of them) to my friends who lived with me who would then merrily cook them and either eat them or refridgerate them for later eating!

I really don't see a problem with - perfectly fine free food is perfectly fine free food

What ever about the immediate use of food, and storing tinned produce, hanging on to sausages that are out of date already and have probably been warm for a while just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Muise... · 29-01-2014 01:58PM

Oranage2 wrote: »

Exactly, how would people feel about 3 men jumping over your back wall and rummaging through your Willie bin for waste?

I know It's a big corporation but they have rights like you and me.

MATRON! :eek:

chopper6 · 29-01-2014 02:05PM

RDM_83 again wrote: »

What ever about the immediate use of food, and storing tinned produce, hanging on to sausages that are out of date already and have probably been warm for a while just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Even worse than that there are some less than scrupulous individuals who will actually try to sell stuff they're sourced in this manner to people eager to save some money.

Cross contamination from meatstuffs to fruit or veg is a real possibility plus food skips are regularly visited by rats,bluebottles and cockroaches.

If food waste is in a skip it should be left there.

whatdoicare · 29-01-2014 02:06PM

When I used to work in Dunnes in the bakery section it used to kill me to throw away cakes and bread that I had just baked that morning. There was nothing wrong with any of the food, it was pure waste to throw it all in the bin.

I got permission from my manager to sign the food off as waste and then bring it to the local homeless shelter, I used to get stuff from the Deli too.

All ended when the big bosses came down from Dublin and decided it made too much sense. So into the bin it all had to go. We ended up pooling our money together from bakery and Deli to buy up the waste whenever we could to donate it. I marked it all down as low as I was allowed to aswell.

I think it should be a requirement that all good food going to be wasted from big supermarkets and restaurants should have to be donated.

J_E · 29-01-2014 02:10PM

My name is URL wrote: »

£33 worth of food taken from a bin in England and it's worthy of outrage and a thread here?

What a load of nonsense

England love to hate a group of people at any given time. I imagine they're bored of Benefits St and My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding at this stage, this is something fresh! Expect a 'real life look' at hippy skipdivers in a television show this time 3 months. You can be fascinating and disgusted at this primal breed of people from the comfort of your own home :pac:

rubadub · 29-01-2014 02:12PM

chopper6 wrote: »

he looks like a smug prick anyway.

We dont know if he's been previously warned to stay away from the area due to his trespassing or whatever he was doing.

I just feel it's unlikely he would actually be prosecuted for a first offense of scabbing a bit of rotten food.

+1, sounds like there was more to the story for this to happen. I bet the police were not too happy about being dragged into what was probably a petty squabble either. Probably quoting made up rights to the staff and them bluffing about calling cops and then having to go through with it.

karma_ · 29-01-2014 02:15PM

uch wrote: »

If one of these crusty's slipped on something while trespassing they would be the first to put in claim, so I don't see the issue with charging them for trespass and stealing.

I think it says a lot about someone when they appraise something like this and automatically see the poorest in a negative light rather than look at the way the company in question deals with perfectly good food by throwing it out rather than giving it for distribution to the needy. So well done you and your thankees.

Hippies charged with stealing food from a skip

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