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NZ Crime wave

Elizabeth I

Philosopher
Elizabeth I
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Jul 22, 2006
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Defending the Alamo
From This is True:

WHAT A BUNCH OF GARBAGE: While waiting for a restaurant to cook his order, an unidentified man in Wellington, New Zealand, decided to clean out his car. He dropped his trash in a public trash can, got his food order, and left. But city officials sifted through the trash and determined it as "domestic" rubbish, tracked him down since his name and address was on a letter in the bin, and sent him a citation demanding NZ$100 (US$76.50) in fines. "I assumed, incorrectly as it turns out, that as it was a litter bin I was able to put litter in it," the man said. "I was unaware that domestic and non-domestic rubbish were categorized differently." He decided to pay the fine since "lack of knowledge of the law is no excuse. I have learned my lesson: When throwing rubbish in those green bins, do not include any incriminating correspondence." (Wellington Dominion Post) ...And now you know why he didn't want to be identified.

Wow, things must be quiet in New Zealand if you have time to ticket people for improper trash disposal. :D
 
With commercial dumpsters the business owner has to pay every time the dumpster is emptied, so if someone decides to throw away bag after bag of household garbage or their old broken furniture in the dumpster behind some restaurant, this costs the business money.

And I think city governments want to prevent people from just taking their kitchen trash and stuffing it into one of the trash cans in the park.

I think it has to do more with volume than the fact you're "illegally" getting rid of trash. I clean garbage out my car at car washes and no one has cares, and once or twice I've gotten rid of furniture at the dumpsters of apartment buildings I technically didn't live at. I figure that people in that huge apartment complex throw away furniture all the time, and they were better equipped to deal with it than a house-renter such as myself.
 
Carnegiea said:
With commercial dumpsters the business owner has to pay every time the dumpster is emptied, so if someone decides to throw away bag after bag of household garbage or their old broken furniture in the dumpster behind some restaurant, this costs the business money.

And I think city governments want to prevent people from just taking their kitchen trash and stuffing it into one of the trash cans in the park.

I think it has to do more with volume than the fact you're "illegally" getting rid of trash. I clean garbage out my car at car washes and no one has cares, and once or twice I've gotten rid of furniture at the dumpsters of apartment buildings I technically didn't live at. I figure that people in that huge apartment complex throw away furniture all the time, and they were better equipped to deal with it than a house-renter such as myself.
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Oh, I don't quarrel with your points. The city where I live has many of the same restrictions. I'm just fascinated that someone actually had time to enforce the ordinance.
 
This was, and may still be, a common thing here in Vermont. I had a college professor who'd just started teaching. Was in an apartment with his family, new to the area, and hadn't yet figured out how to dispose of trash. So he put a small (his words) bag of household garbage into one of those roadside green trash barrels.

Much to his surprise-and outrage- a week or so later he got a nasty letter from the State Highway people. They went through his garbage, found something with his address on it and wrote him a letter telling him in no uncertain terms that this was a big No-No, and to never ever do it again lest he be subjected to a massive fine. He felt they should have better things to do than sift through trash barrels for signs of illegal garbage. (On the other hand, when landfills began charging for bags of garbage this sort of clandestine dumping did become an occasional problem.)
 
This strikes me as no more unreasonable than issuing parking tickets.
Who has time to ticket people for improper parking?
 
kerikiwi said:
This strikes me as no more unreasonable than issuing parking tickets.
Who has time to ticket people for improper parking?
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For a parking ticket you don't have to go sifting through half eaten burgers and moldy fries on the off chance somebody left a label on something.

It would make for a great way to mess with somebody. Just print up a bunch of labels for someone you don't like and dump them in random trash bins.
 
Elizabeth I said:
Wow, things must be quiet in New Zealand if you have time to ticket people for improper trash disposal. :D
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I'm surprised that anyone's surprised - and the guy who got busted was either lying or very, very stupid; that has been the law in NZ for over 20 years.

I see from other posts that it's quite common in other places as well. It's all about cost of rubbish removal and disposal. Each household pays for its rubbish removal, as does the city council. Given that my rates cover city council costs, I'm pretty happy he was fined. Why should I pay to tip his rubbish?
 
The Atheist said:
I see from other posts that it's quite common in other places as well. It's all about cost of rubbish removal and disposal. Each household pays for its rubbish removal, as does the city council. Given that my rates cover city council costs, I'm pretty happy he was fined. Why should I pay to tip his rubbish?
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Would you rather he chose the apparently cheaper option: littering?
 
strathmeyer said:
Would you rather he chose the apparently cheaper option: littering?
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Since littering is also punishable by a fine, I would have thought the cheap option would be to take it home and put it in his rubbish bin.

Amazing how simple these things are at times, eh?
 
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