[G6Tanuki]

As someone who pays £2K/year in council-tax I want my Council tip facilities to be run at the cheapest-possible price.

Truth is, dealing with "exceptions" - like allowing certain specific bits of dumped-stuff to find its way out of the tip and back into circulation - are a really expensive and annoying overhead to the operators, both in terms of paperwork [producing receipts for legal ownership, VAT-records-compliance etc] and ongoing liability.

Imagine the ruckus if someone who took their old radiogram to the tip subsequently sees it advertised on Ebay for a couple of hundred quid. Then imagine if they pursue the Council through the courts to try and 'get their money back'.

Or if you took your old tumble-drier, vacuum-cleaner, freezer, washing-machine to the Council tip (expecting it to be destroyed and thats-the-last-you-would-see-of-it) and a year later it was tracked-back to you as the last owner (by its serial-number you registered for the guarantee 10 years ago...) as having caused a fire in which people died.

Sure, it's sad to see sometimes-interesting stuff get junked, but the liability-complexity of doing otherwise is just too expensive.