A Wrexham woman is facing a possible criminal charge of theft under Section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 for allegedly taking four green plastic garden chairs out of the landfill skip at the local household ‘recycling’ centre.
The ‘recycling’ centre is owned by Wrexham County Borough Council (WCBC) and run by the Waste ‘Recycling’ Group (WRG) under contract. The alleged theft was reported by WRG to WCBC, who apparently own the stuff in the skips that they then chuck into landfill, and it is WCBC who asked the police to investigate the matter. It also had the option of taking a civil action under the Environmental Protection Act. Stopping people from rescuing stuff from landfill is a serious business for the council.
The council’s ‘Vision, Strategic Aims and Priorities’ for 2008-9 include the following: “We are committed to dealing with waste in the most economical and environmentally sustainable way – setting an aspirational target to divert 40% of municipal waste away from landfill. We also aim to recycle, reuse or compost 65% of the waste received at household recycling centres…” It is difficult to see why the council would seek a theft charge against someone who was helping to achieve that target.
Instead of politely telling the council not to waste their time, the cops obligingly arrested and interviewed the suspected ‘thief’ just over a week ago and threatened to search her house and garden in order to recover the ‘stolen’ goods which they say must be returned to their ‘rightful owner’ (so they can be put back in the landfill skip, presumably). When the suspect answered bail today, she was told that the police would like to arrange a photo/video identity parade before submitting a file to the Crown Prosecution Service which will have to decide whether prosecuting the case would be good use of public money and in the public interest etc.
In the council’s view it is just too risky to allow anyone to take plastic garden chairs out of skips. Just suppose there was a problem with one of the chairs, and just further suppose that this problem wasn’t noticed and a child should sit on that chair and fall off and injure themselves, and just suppose that the parent of that injured child came back to the council and threatened to sue. Just suppose, eh! Never mind that the council is supposed to be conserving its dwindling landfill capacity; never mind that the mixture of plastics and other chemicals that end up in landfill poison the earth and lead to babies being miscarried or born with cleft palates, that children develop breathing problems and tumours from living near landfill. The causes of such tragedies are much harder to prove in the courts.
Given that the suspect in this alleged crime has been attempting to persuade the council to set up a proper re-use section at each of its household ‘recycling’ centres for some time now, making polite, sensible and helpful suggestions that have been stubbornly rejected or ignored, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the council is trying to shut up the troublesome citizen by reporting this ‘theft’ to the police.
Although WCBC and WRG have lots of excuses about how a re-use scheme would not be possible, desirable or workable, and could leave them open to prosecution if faulty goods were taken for re-use, councils in many places including Islington and the Isle of Man operate just such schemes, apparently without any problems and keeping large amounts of stuff out of landfill. The council claims that it has tried a scheme like this before but withdrawn it after complaints from the public. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that this was a scheme whereby ‘totters’ sorted through people’s rubbish as they put it into the skip, which some people found upsetting, whereas a proper re-use scheme would allow members of the public themselves to select those items which might be useful to someone else, and leave them in a covered area within the recycling centre (or elsewhere) for other people to take for their own use.
Freeconomy Wrexham has recently set up a small re-use scheme which is proving very popular, and which has satisfied the Trading Standards department of the same WCBC that it is operating safely and responsibly. It’s a bit of a mystery why the Environmental Services Department of WCBC has such difficulties with the concept of re-use, especially since it’s right near the top of the waste ‘hierarchy’ which the council claims to be committed to.
It does look as if the police are determined that the case should be prosecuted, and if it goes ahead, it should prove a very interesting court case. If anyone has experience of such cases, it would be good to hear from you.
freeconomywrexham_at_yahoo.co.uk