I stop by the dump on West Ox every so often to grab a few pieces of scrap wood for arts and crafts projects. Sometime I find something cool in the scrap wood pile and toss it in the back of my car.

Well today I was picking out some wood and an employee approached me and told me I couldn't take anything. He said it was against the law and everything there (trash) is county property and if I take anything it is stealing. Is this right??? Seems so odd to me that I would get in trouble for this...

If you drop items off in the scrap metal area, you'll see signs that "salvaging" is not permitted. I'm sure when it comes to the landfill, it's not the idea of you taking items that becomes the issue - it's the liability that they face. There's lots of heavy equipment being utilized to keep the trash moving along - they don't need to look out for people in trash piles sorting through the goods in an attempt to make a find.

you are not supposed to, but being the rule breaker that i am, I do it all the time

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W.W.S.D. what would Scooby Doo

Just like feeding pigeons in the park, they must have rules to keep the dump pickers at at bay and under control.

More than likely if there is a sign not permitting it then it's not allowed since technically the items are on county property. Also at the transfer station some of those items especially metal is very valuable on the commodities market. I don't really see why there would be a problem with picking up items that have already been billed for tonnage b/c then they actually have to take the items to a landfill and be charged to dump it so I really don't get it beyond the county just not wanting to be held liable if you get hurt dumpster diving. But its not illegal for you to pick up items left on someones curb or in there trash can.

Try putting an ad on Craigslist asking for scrap wood.

The county burns its trash to power a generator, so they probably don't want people to take wood and regular trash because of that.

mikeyc Wrote:
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> More than likely if there is a sign not permitting
> it then it's not allowed since technically the
> items are on county property. Also at the transfer
> station some of those items especially metal is
> very valuable on the commodities market. I don't
> really see why there would be a problem with
> picking up items that have already been billed for
> tonnage b/c then they actually have to take the
> items to a landfill and be charged to dump it so I
> really don't get it beyond the county just not
> wanting to be held liable if you get hurt dumpster
> diving. But its not illegal for you to pick up
> items left on someones curb or in there trash can.
>
>

The issue is liability - as I stated earlier. The county literally hauls hundreds of truckloads of trash from the West Ox transfer station to Lorton each and every day. The trucks are parked underground and a loader and crane are responsible for pushing the trash into these trucks for hauling. The loader is usually running continuously during the heavy periods that the transfer station is open. The county would get sued for millions of dollars if some peep popped their head up from behind a trash pile right before the loader plowed them into the truck. Signs = a few hundred dollars. Lawsuit = millions of dollars.