Thieves in the night

Caesar dude · April 23, 2012, 08:15:52 PM

As a lot of you know I work in a recycling centre in rural Norfolk.

Our particular centre is situated in the countryside about 8 miles North of Norwich and serves the many villages and towns around that area.

We collect mobile phones for the East Anglian Air Ambulance which is ran purely through charity and needs about 4 million pounds each year to operate.

A couple of weeks ago we had a break in (even though the site has 24 hour CCTV linked to a security company which should call the police if the cameras are activated out of hours...this didn't happen)

They stole a wheelie bin containing around 50 mobiles or 500 quids worth of charity....they also broke in to our waste electronic and electrical equipment store and robbed us of some cable and chargers presumably for the phones they had stolen.

This was reported to the police but of course it was a forlorn hope of catching the hooded bandits. For one thing I could not possibly give the police an inventory or description of the items that were stolen just that a bunch of phones had been nicked!

I implemented a policy of then locking away the wheelie bin containing the mobile phones and a new padlock on the WEEE container...however last Sunday for whatever reason I forgot to put the wheelie bin away and one of my guys left the WEEE bin unlocked!

We were broken into again that night and this time they stole the newly dumped phones and a 40" flat screen TV from the WEEE container! DOH!!!

However I happened to know about the 40" Samsung TV as I had put it in there myself and had commented to the customer about how new it looked...he'd told me it was still working but he'd bought a 3D TV and didn't need it any more!!! WTF? He couldn't be bothered to give it to some one? But I digress. I'd also put a silver, broken iphone into the phone bin so at least this time I had a description of some of the items that had gone!

The police came again and took statements and finger prints which was nice but again there would be very little chance of finding the fuckers.

Anyhoo. Next day the copper came back and told me they'd caught the guys! Turns out that a farmer who lives across the road from us had seen a suspicious car parked in his driveway and reported the registration to the Police....the cops (probably working in shifts down at the crime lab) had put two and two together and raided the address the car was registered to at 2.00 am! and had found the Samsung TV mounted to the wall and the silver iphone, plus around 50 mobile phones and chargers in the house!!!

Result! Those scumbags are now facing charges and will be up in court in a couple of months time

Small victories dudes...small victories.

DigitalBuddha · April 23, 2012, 11:29:54 PM

Across your line, THEY DID NOT!

Rev. Gary (revgms) · April 24, 2012, 10:02:14 AM

LOL, I was in recycling until just recently, I am no amateur when it comes to being ripped off. The last one happened right after I left the co, this time armed robbery, my buddy chased them down and led cops to them via cell phone.

I left the biz because I was sick of dealing with crooks and crackheads.

Caesar dude · April 24, 2012, 03:56:58 PM

QuoteI left the biz because I was sick of dealing with crooks and crackheads.

And that was just the staff!

Rev. Gary (revgms) · April 24, 2012, 09:08:00 PM

You have no idea how on the mark you are.

DigitalBuddha · April 24, 2012, 11:52:54 PM

Holy shit, mang, is the recycling biz that fucked up?

Rev. Gary (revgms) · April 25, 2012, 01:13:44 PM

I can't speak to every market or every company, but kinda yeah. Too much easy money, that on top of what is a 3D occupation, Dirty, Dull and Dangerous.

I got into it because in the late 80s they said we need to save the world, so I went to do so, then found out money is much more the driving force behind recycling(metals anyways). ZIt had its moments, but not really for idealists.

Caesar dude · April 25, 2012, 05:05:36 PM

It's all about the money dudes. Look for the guy who profits.

There's a LOT of money in trash. It's a very very dirty business.

Hominid · April 25, 2012, 09:50:34 PM

Follow the money. Back when the Ottawa municipal government started their blue-box recycling program, it wasn't to be green, but to defer landfill costs. That simple.

Rev. Gary (revgms) · April 25, 2012, 10:16:05 PM

There are techs coming down the line that will mean the average household trash will be worth about a dime a pound. We tried to get the contract to provide copper scrap to be used in a trash gasification plant. If we had gotten it, I would have had a decked out Dude bus to travel around and chill with ya Dudes.

I was in for 25 years off an on, founding member of a company for 7 years, burnt out on it, and the company has been hanging by a thread since the market crash three years ago. I plan to still do some charity scrap drives, I liked doing those.

BikerDude · April 26, 2012, 03:56:56 PM

Whatever happened to robbing banks?

Caesar dude · April 26, 2012, 05:44:28 PM

Quotettps://sites.google.com/site/livingwithoutmoney

We leave that to Merchant bankers nowadays....

Abideist · April 26, 2012, 10:26:24 PM

Hey guys, I used to work for a film studio that had a lot with lighting posts, well, we were renovating and took them down to make a different scheme. We had these posts ready to be picked up by the city for recycling when a crew we hired to do some HVAC work decided to open them up as they were laying by the bins and strip the copper. I almost go fired for telling them 'Yea that's trash' , off hand when they asked if we were disposing them.

Be careful how you dispose of property thats not yours. I guess that's the lesson. : (