I'm well into local community based recycling as a way of reducing my usage of finite resources so I rarely cycle past a skip without glancing at the contents. This evening I was looking into a skip containing some huge kitchen appliances. I was lifting them slightly to see if there was anything more useful underneath - there wasn't and I was about to pass it by - when 2 cops from a car walked over to me. The agressive one asked me why I was looking in the skip. Well, blindingly obvious or what - to see if there's anything worth having. He didn't like this and asked if I'd sought permission from the skip hirer. I had to politely remind him that everything placed in a skip, technically belongs to the owner of the skip - A J Bull or whoever - not the hirer. To this he said if I took anything out of a skip then I'd be charged with theft which left me flabbergasted. I can't really imagine A J Bull complaining much or pressing charges if one of their skips returns to the waste transfer station slightly lighter.
Presumably this recent post from which I freely admit I benefitted by a few sticks of memory (thanks fellow skip diver!):
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/09/408492.html
was blatant incitement.
He then searched me and my bag under section 1 PACE, on the grounds that I was acting suspiciously because I was "looking in the skip". Well to act suspiciously, I figure one has to actually know that you're about to commit some kind of an offence but there was no point in arguing with this nazi who was as bad as the worst of the cops doing searches at climate camp. His companion seemed slightly embarrassed by the whole procedure. This seems such an utter waste of police time that I'm left really wound up by it all. I'm now presumably occupying disk space on the police computer under dodgy-geezer-to-be-constantly-watched-in-future category. I was made to look like some serious criminal in front of the passers-by. I was threatened with arrest for contemplating reducing the country's colossal landfill tonnage. Over the years, I've pulled out loads of lead and other toxic metal rich computer bits from skips out of which I've built quite a few working PCs. Only last week and quite a few times over the years, I've relieved other skips of about half a tonne at a time of old roof tiles which are ideal for containing the raised beds on my allotment. Since they're made from concrete, the carbon footprint of all those tiles - should I have caused new ones to be made for me - is something like 20 tonnes of CO2. The landfill tax is about £16/tonne, so I've also saved each of those previous skip hirers effectively about £8 each as I created extra space in their skips for more building rubbish. Has anyone else experienced anything as daft as this? I'm herewith fessing to more acts of theft than I can possibly remember. Is there a lawyer offering advice in the house? Would there only be a case if the skip owner pressed charges?