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Yo I still fondly remember the first piece of furniture I found on the street.
Well, technically it was my ex-partner who made the discovery; he came back to our apartment one day practically bursting with excitement. “I just saw a table on the street!” he proclaimed in a tone of childlike wonder. “I think it’s free to take away…”
I didn’t need to be told twice. At the time, we were both in our twenties and always broke. The one-bedroom apartment we rented together had a couch, a bed, and a built-in closet, but no table. We ate our meals sitting on each other’s laps; inviting friends over for dinner was literally out of the question. This discovery was going to transform our lives. We were going to become the kind of couple that “entertains.”
We ran back to the place where I had found this miracle item a couple of streets away and it was even better in person. It could be folded down to just half a table or extended to a full table or half table and was perfect for our small open plan kitchen/living area.
The only snag was that the previous owner had decided, in his infinite wisdom, to paint it gold. But even that anomaly became part of the story. We carefully carried our new find home and spent a memorable Sunday lovingly disassembling it, sanding it down, and varnishing the original wood until it gleamed – we who had never done a DIY job in our lives. Whenever someone came to the apartment, we proudly referred to it as our “Street Table,” as if we were foster parents who had gallantly swooped in to save this abandoned and vulnerable four-legged friend from a life of unimaginable hardship.
I mention the origin story of Street Table because it’s a prime example of how the act of “middle-class illegal dumping” — leaving unwanted household items on the curb for people to pick up, sometimes with a note to the effect — can in fact be a noble act, allowing one party to get rid of stuff while another benefits from household items they couldn’t necessarily afford otherwise. It’s sustainability in action — keeping things in use rather than throwing them away unnecessarily, a secondhand ecosystem that doesn’t need a middleman.
Thankfully, councils are finally being told to take a more positive view of the practice. The local government and social care ombudsman, Amerdeep Somal, has said that local authorities in England will be given new guidance in response to reports that councils have acted “disproportionately” in issuing fines.
“We have found failings in some cases in London in recent months, particularly where people have left their rubbish outside at the wrong time and councils have taken an over-zealous approach to enforcing the law,” he said. The Guardian“No one wants to live in a disorderly environment, but we urge local authorities to take a proportionate approach when enforcing the regulations.”
He added that councils should “think carefully about using the right tool at the right time”. The new nine-page guidance will encourage local authorities to assess illegal dumping and littering on a case-by-case basis and only impose a fine after receiving a notice followed by a written warning.
It is a way of hitting back at a number of people who have been hit with astronomical fines for simply leaving, say, an Ikea wardrobe outside their home for neighbours to take away. Last week, Isabelle Pepin was issued a £500 fixed penalty by a private refuse collector for doing just that. Meanwhile, a carpet fitter in Bournemouth was given a £500 fixed penalty for leaving a cut-up piece of carpet outside his home.
Although it's not illegal dumping per se, a friend of mine recently came home from holiday to find she'd been fined £300 for leaving a bag of rubbish on the street the day before her weekly rubbish collection. “We don't have wheelie bins so there's nowhere else to put it,” she said. “We were trying to do the sensible thing rather than leave it rotting in our flat for a week. We didn't think arriving a day early would matter.”
It's sustainability in action: keeping things in use instead of throwing them away unnecessarily.
In her case, the private guard had played private detective: he had determined which of the many flats the rubbish belonged to, by rummaging through it and finding the name and address of her flatmate on a contact lens box. They are trying to appeal the ruling; “We really can't afford to pay,” she said.
One issue that campaigners have long raised is that most of these fines are imposed by private companies contracted by the public sector. Josie Appleton, co-ordinator of civil liberties group Manifesto Club, said of the new guidance: “[It] “The article makes good arguments, but it avoids the burning issue: simply put, “pay-for-fine” contracts should not be legal. These companies do not get paid unless they impose fines, and the more fines they impose, the more money they make. People employed on these terms are not going to be impartial or act in a “professional and proportionate” manner.”
And as much as no one wants their street to be clogged with old mattresses and broken TVs, sometimes it seems there’s no way around it. When I moved house, it turned out the door was too narrow for my sofa to fit through. The removal men had no choice but to leave it outside – not wanting it to go to landfill, I tried hard to give it away via Facebook Marketplace, but to no avail. The earliest the council could collect it was a week from now, and they’d charge me over £50 for the pleasure. Paranoid that I’d get a fine in the meantime, I ended up paying a smaller sum to a local man with a van to take it away (although whether he disposed of it responsibly I’ll never know).
According to Karl Williams, Professor of Resources, Energy and Environment and Director of the Waste Management Centre at the University of Central Lancashire, this is a problem in itself. “You are entering a whole new area where residents are paying illegal people to take away waste which ends up being dumped illegally,” he said.
Indeed, if councils really wanted to stamp out illegal dumping, whether middle class or otherwise, they would be well advised to consider offering “bulky waste” removal for a much lower fee – or, better still, for free. After all, if people can’t afford to book a collection, what’s the alternative? Even landfill is off-limits if, like me, you don’t have a car. And anyone who has tried Freecycle, Gumtree, Facebook and the rest knows how infuriating it can be to try and give away items. Endless back-and-forth messaging with strangers often results in nothing more than a no-show, and these seemingly enthusiastic people ignore you in a way that is somehow worse than when a potential romantic partner does.
The age-old practice of leaving a couple of chairs on the sidewalk with a sign reading “Free to a good home!” is, more often than not, more of a help than a hindrance. Just the other day, a friend of mine stopped by my house with a bookshelf he’d found dumped in front of a house down the street. “I thought it might fit in the gap in your spare bedroom,” he said, and it did! This perfectly good piece of work that would otherwise be destined for the landfill is in for a glorious second chapter; a new Street Baby replacement has been given the home it deserves. Whoever left it out should be praised, not punished. It’s about time we saw middle-class illegal dumping as a force for good.
