The Energon Pub

I am a night owl and an early riser. I dont usually get a lot of sleep. I like my time with Jessica asleep to clean and do what I want on the TV and computer but I have to get up early with the kiddies. I average about once a month I have a few days that I collapse in bed early from exhaustion.

We used to get into a chip manufactures dumpster because they would throw away boat loads of chips simply because they would not get to the store fresh enough. They were perfectly good chips and the dumpsters did not have anything icky in them either just bags of chips. Do to liability issues they started locking the dumpsters. Really sad when you think of all the Hungary people out there and the amount of good food that is thrown away simply due to liability problems.

Burn wrote:What happens if you jump in and and prick yourself on a used needle? Or impale yourself on something else?

What about those who dumpster dive for food and they end up eating something that was rotten and end up sick from it?

Then I'd say it was your own risk for not being careful. For example, if someone is a crappy driver and plows their car into a traffic light at an intersection, is it the city's legal culpability for putting a light there? No, it's the driver's for not being careful. If you're throwing away stuff in a legal manner, then it's the dumpster diver's own risk if they sift through it. (I would note, though, that throwing out a used needle without using a biohazardous materials disposal container *is* illegal even if nobody's diving into your trash.)

IMHO, laws should be designed to protect people from other people hurting them, not protect people from themselves. You can control what you do to yourself.

Jeysie wrote:Then I'd say it was your own risk for not being careful. For example, if someone is a crappy driver and plows their car into a traffic light at an intersection, is it the city's legal culpability for putting a light there? No, it's the driver's for not being careful. If you're throwing away stuff in a legal manner, then it's the dumpster diver's own risk if they sift through it. (I would note, though, that throwing out a used needle without using a biohazardous materials disposal container *is* illegal even if nobody's diving into your trash.)

IMHO, laws should be designed to protect people from other people hurting them, not protect people from themselves. You can control what you do to yourself.

I totally agree with you! When you "case" potential divable dumpsters, you usually chose those in industrial parks...usually not the hot-bed of junkie activity in the area.....and those backed up to places that would be most apt to have what you're looking for. In our case, we were hunting for broken and trashed computers, therefore we went to industrial parks exclusively. The worst we ever found in any dumpster, other than the occasional animal corpse, were documents with sensitive material on them that escaped the shredder.

Granted, there are always dangers in diving any dumpster, but if you cannot accept the mission in total, do not accept the mission at all! Leaves more good junk for the rest of us!

Pyrostrata wrote:

Manitou Z3ROhour wrote:Pyrostrata & Saber Prime:
I knew i felt a hush in the night. A coolness upon my neck.
Kindred in sense and senibilty. Long dead the living night!

also: either a "solar ball" or "flaming bag of space gas"?
i chose the kinder.

Nice poem!

Indeed the night is loaded with life..and death...all rolled into one! The humans can keep their flaming daystar!

Flaming daystar, I like that one too.

Pyrostrata wrote:Granted, there are always dangers in diving any dumpster, but if you cannot accept the mission in total, do not accept the mission at all! Leaves more good junk for the rest of us!

See, it's okay for you to say that because you can sit there easily enough and say you're responsible.

But there are those out there that aren't. And that's what the laws are for.

Just like you get a lot of irresponsible drivers. Even if a person had to take a driving test every time they renewed their license they'd be on their best behaviour. Once there's no authorities around out comes the mobile phones, the speeding, the law ignoring. The laws are there to protect people, but it's those that choose to ignore them that end up causing harm.

Back to dumpster diving, there's also the very grey issue of just who actually owns the property. Some will argue that even though it's thrown out, it remains the property of the discarder while others believe (like me) that once it's thrown out it's for any and all.

Burn wrote:Back to dumpster diving, there's also the very grey issue of just who actually owns the property. Some will argue that even though it's thrown out, it remains the property of the discarder while others believe (like me) that once it's thrown out it's for any and all.

That is really up to the people wanting to dive to find out whether or not the whole thing is actually legal in their particular area. We were doing our diving as a business-type thing...meaning we researched the laws and let the respective parties involved and the police know who we were and what we were doing..most were quite open to the idea, really...In this city, the dumpster-area is the propery of the owner of the dumpster, which is usually a sanitation company, and they could have really cared less what we did. Some of the businesses were so open to our endevours, they would not put the units in the dumpster itself, they would set it outside the loading-bay doors and call us and let us know that it's there.

Gotta do stuff the right way or do not do it at all.