Who owns my garbage?

If your trash is still on your property, nobody but the trash collector can come in and paw through it. However, most jurisdictions consider possessions abandoned once you set them out at the curb, in the alley, etc. Some specifics:

• The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled police don’t need a warrant to search trash left at the curb (in legal terms, “outside the curtilage” — i.e., outside your private domain, sometimes but not always denoted by the property line). Police officer Gina Hoesly of Portland, Oregon, learned this firsthand when fellow officers searched her garbage, found drug residue and a pipe, and busted her. Hoesly’s lawyers argued her rights were broader under the Oregon constitution, and the state’s court of appeals agreed. Unfortunately for other Oregonians who throw out pipes and drug residue, the cops merely changed tactics and began enlisting the help of the garbage companies, and state courts have now held police can search trash once it’s picked up.
• Given the rising value of recyclables, many jurisdictions are passing antiscavenging laws making your trash city property once you dump it at the curb, at which point no one but a city employee can legally remove it.
• In a related matter — I tell you, this is a subject with wide ramifications — the city of Rancho Mirage, California, sought to stop local businesses from selling their recyclables to a commercial firm and instead required them to turn the stuff over to the city’s chosen recycler. Basically the court ruled waste, by definition, is worthless. Since the businesses were selling it, it wasn’t worthless; therefore, they were within their rights to do so. Justice triumphs again.

Can you retrieve something you threw out by accident? Generally, yes — legally you can’t abandon something by mistake.

Join over 320,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

Related posts:

New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy

New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful

How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert