Nathan Smith is well-practised in seeing the value in what others throw away.
His house is furnished with scavenged items — right down to the kitchen cupboards and television screens.
Dumpster diving has resulted in finds including brand-new, flat-packed furniture.
What he does not keep, he sells online.
This week he and his partner Lesley Ann Kenny were fined $1,200 each in the Bunbury Magistrate's Court for trespassing late at night at a tip in the south-west of Western Australia.
Waste authorities said scavengers caused constant headaches, warned foragers' actions were both dangerous and illegal.
Dumpster diving enough to furnish house
Mr Smith said over the years, he had seen thousands of dollars of discarded goods thrown away, not just at tips, but at open dumpsters behind shops.
"There's jewellery, there's rare coins, 20 laptops from one of the local schools, that were current laptops in perfect working order," he said.
Mr Smith, who has worked as a business owner and a glazier, said he started paying attention to waste about six years ago.
"There is a lot of waste going on," he said.
"The back of shops, the bins — I mean if the bins are locked, they're locked, I don't go breaking into things, or breaking locks or anything like that — but if the bins are open I'll have a look at them.
"One of the furniture shops, the bin out the back was full of flat-packed furniture, still in cardboard boxes, enough to deck out my room, and my kids rooms, with beds and tall boys."
Authorities warn of dangers
Mr Smith was one of three people caught by police after they crawled through a hole at the Stanley Road Waste Management Facilty, in Australind, in WA's south-west in January.
This week, he and partner Lesley-Ann Kenny pleaded guilty to trespass in the Bunbury Magistrate's Court, with the magistrate warning that 'doing up' and on-selling discarded electrical appliances was "inherently dangerous".
Both were fined $1,200, but warned they faced a maximum fine of $12,000.
The Bunbury Harvey Regional Council, the operator of the Stanley Road Management Facility, said there was already a 'trash and treasure' shop at the tip, and the vast majority of e-waste was recovered and sent up to Perth for recycling.
Chief executive Tony Battersby refuted claims that the majority of items sent to the tip ended up in landfill.
"We recover anything that actually could be re-used … and sell it at a very minimal cost," he said.
"At our site, we recycle over 52 per cent of the materials that come in."
He said trespass was a constant issue, and posed a serious safety risk.
"It's a fairly regular occurrence, we have security cameras … at some point, somebody has cut the fence, and we regularly fix the fences back up," he said.
"Also on the safety side of it, while they're breaking in after hours, there's nobody here, if something was to go wrong."
Once-bitten, twice-shy
Nathan Smith said while his trespass fine deterred him from breaking the law in the future, he still maintained there was a difference between actions that were 'legally wrong' and 'morally wrong.'
He said he would continue to do up items like bikes, to sell.
"You see on TV and all the radio programs to keep it out of landfill," he said.
"It's not going to stop me, but I'm going to be doing things differently from now on.
"One bitten, twice shy."
