Note that taking someone's rubbish without permission is considered theft in the UK (there is precedent). If you sell it it's even worse because it's handling stolen goods.
My understanding is that in almost all jurisdictions in USA possession end when the trash is moved to the curb, put in public space. I remember reading at some point that at least in some part of Texas possession is transferred from the individual to the trash collection agency. This was interesting to me from privacy/search warrant perspective.
though i doubt the people i was living with who would break into abandoned buildings to establish residence are all that too concerned with your rubbish 'theft' precedent
the tablet salvage was in the states and unfortunately i'd be unsurprised if there are equally uncharitable precedent here as well
.. as an aside, i would be interested in reading your referenced precedent, i agree going through someone's bin to get personal info or to file false credit card offers on their behalf should be illegal, but i'd be interested to read the ruling if it is literally a broken electronics salvage
you linked to an article pretrial
the person in the article took food from a bin stead ewaste
i tried to find a followup article or court decision but was unable
i did find a similar article from iceland where people were charged under an 1824 vagrancy act which was ruled unworthy of prosecution(o)
your linked case reads like a power tripping manager to me
this practice was part of the squat culture as well: every few days we would do a 'skip hop'.. skip being the term for a large trash bin.. we'd go to grocery stores who were legally bound to throw away food that expired that day at the end of the day as well as forbidden from giving away 'rotten' food, so the employees would stack the food items carefully in separate trash bags from the 'actual' rubbish and put these bags next to the bins
pageantry of plausible deniability is a hilarious thing
(o) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2014/jan/...
> One precedent-setting example from 1877 was the case of a diseased buried pig. According to legal text Archbold's Pleading, Evidence, and Practice in Criminal Cases, even if someone discards something and does not intend to use it again, they can retain ownership of it.
> this practice was part of the squat culture as well
Not sure this would work as a defence, to be honest.
The first case. The owner of a sick pig buried on his land, then another person dig it and sold the carcass, in the 19th century. It's hard to tell if he was prosecuted for digging the land, or selling a diseased carcass, or theft.
The tesco case is equally poor. It doesn't say what is the result of the trial. Most likely because there wasn't one or it didn't go the way the article wished.
If a third party bin company you had no relationship with took it it would also be theft.