Thieving Teachers? Forced Donations? Or Just a Silly Ethical Debate over 10-Cent Recycling?
Channel: Daily Insight
Date: 27/03/2019

Last week, my son had a pizza day at school. We booked it online for like $6 or $7 and he choose to get a slice of Hawaiian pizza, an ice cream, and an apple juice popper. Recently in Queensland, the government introduced a container refund scheme where you can take your used drink containers down to the local recycling centre to get a 10c refund per container. So of course, when my son had the pizza day, naturally he wanted to take home his empty juice container to add it to his collection. However, the teachers wouldn’t let him. They said that he “had” to donate it to the school. I didn’t know about this until after school that day where he quite eagerly and openly told me what had happened.

At that point, I was a bit peeved. The school had never mentioned this beforehand, and I honestly didn’t know where the empty containers were going. I assumed they were going to be donated to the local Parents and Citizens’ (P&C) Association, but I wasn’t 100% sure. So I emailed my son’s teacher.

I worded the email fairly nicely. I basically questioned where the containers were going and mentioned that my son wanted to take his empty popper home, but was told he wasn’t allowed to. One week later, the teacher still hasn’t replied to me.

I get it — it’s only 10c — it’s not the crime of the century. However, over hundreds of students, 10c suddenly becomes $50 or $100.

I tell you what my thoughts are — forcing somebody to donate, is not a donation. The very essence of a donation is that it is voluntary. If the Mafia comes to your house and asks for a “donation”, making you feel threatened in the process, well that’s not a donation — that’s robbery.

Under Queensland law, stealing is described as follows:

Stealing is taking something—it could be a car, an animal, an item of jewellery or anything of value—that belongs to another person, without their consent, and keeping it with no intention of giving it back to them. The maximum penalty for stealing is 5 years imprisonment although if the theft includes aggravation—carrying a weapon or physically harming someone—the penalty can be up to 14 years in prison.

There is a lesser regulatory offence called shoplifting, which can include eating or drinking something in a shop without paying; swapping, removing, or altering price tags; leaving a restaurant or hotel without paying, etc. If the value of goods stolen is less than $150, shoplifting falls under the Regulatory Offences Act 1985 and carries a fine of about $783. For goods valued at more than $150, shoplifting becomes stealing.

So what are your thoughts? Although taking a juice container from a child is a fairly petty crime, it’s not really shoplifting, is it? It sounds like it falls more under the category of stealing to me. Of course, I have no intentions of pressing charges against the school. Ultimately, they thought they were doing the right thing. They thought by collecting all the juice containers, they could raise a little bit of extra money for the school. I’m not arguing against where the money is going, just how they went about it.

In my email, I mentioned that they simply could have sent a note home outlining their intentions. They should have told the parents that they plan to collect unused containers from students to raise money for the local P&C. I reckon most parents would agree.

If instead of taking the students’ empty containers, they instead took cash, would anybody find that acceptable? I don’t think so unless it was made clear ahead of time why the students had to donate 10c.

For me, it’s not about the money. Under Queensland law, stealing doesn’t have any monetary limitation. As long as the property does not belong to you and has some sort of value, you can’t just take it.

To be fair to the school, I actually do like the idea of the school collecting unused containers, but it should not be compulsory for students to donate. The school should put specially marked bins around the eating areas and allow the students to make the decision for themselves.

I know some of you might be thinking — it’s only 10c. But that’s not really the point. The ethical debate is that it is wrong to take somebody’s property. The monetary value of it is irrelevant. If we allow the school to take 10c worth of stuff from each child, where do we stop? We have to draw the line somewhere, and the only reasonable place to draw that line is at $0. If the object has any perceived value and the person does not want your to take it, then you can’t take it. It’s pretty simple I reckon.

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SOURCES
Containers Refund Scheme Queensland
https://www.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/68485/container-refund-factsheet.pdf
Shoplifting, stealing, fraud and burglary
https://www.qld.gov.au/law/crime-and-police/types-of-crime/shoplifting-stealing-fraud-and-burglary

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