The cargo company should be prosecuted for littering. Unless they can convince some benevolent locals to go help them clean up the spill.
Members of the British government have been calling for strong efforts to ensure the shipping company and its insurers will pay the costs of the cleanup. Seatrade, which operates the vessel, said its insurers are fully engaged in the process, and in the meantime, volunteers are scouring the beaches, aiding in the cleanup (and possibly taking a few bananas home as a reward).
Oh goodie, the insurers are fully engaged! I'm sure they will help clear the quickly rotting food off the beach just as much as the volunteers who are physically there doing actual work.
God I hate pencil-pusher culture, it's so weird 😂
Thanks for the quote! I realise I replied snarkily - I'm not mad at you of course, just at the quote
"The guards were on the river bank to make sure the poor didn't take the fruit from the river, when that was too expensive it was collected in a pile and doused in kerosene. The hogs were burned as well all for the sake of profit" -grapes of wrath
I honestly think about it to this day. We didn't give milk to the homeless during covid. Farmers dumped it all for profit. We don't grow food to feed We gro food to make profit.
Came to the comments just to make sure that passage was on top.
Inb4 this is some archaic law that says all booties washed ashore belong to the monarch or something
There exist an archaic law like that, but it doesn't include all booties, only 'Royal Fish', and imho it would be a stretch to consider bananas as whales or sturgeons.
This case would be under maritime law. Iirc the cargo still belongs to the shipping company if it fell, but would be a 'finders keepers' if they threw it overboard. But I'm not a lawyer (sea lawyer?), I think this is for recoveries at sea, when it's already on shore local laws might apply instead, idk...
OBJECTION! Bananas are the most regal of fish.
Not really archaic - if this was valuable stuff washing up on shore, the law would still be relevant.
Man.....I had no idea the monarchy was so into lathered up clean butts!
So the rumors are true, good food is indeed illegal in the UK.
Yeah but it's also the daily mail who are reporting this so default assumptions.
this reminds me of the famous quote in the grapes of wrath
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
In their defense, the warning could just be a CYA thing if someone eats one, gets sick and wants to sue for food poisoning.
That'd make sense, but they didn't warn about the possible consequences; they warn that you may be prosecuted
Because they have lawyers in retainer. They only speak one language. From their perspective, putting out a threading notice is the cheapest, easiest thing to do.
Excuse me. There's a sign at Ramsett Park that says "Do not drink the sprinkler water," so I made sun tea with it, and now I have an infection. Sir? Sir, are... are... are... are you listening to me, sir? Sir, I'm talking to you! Sir! Sir, are you aware that there is waste in your water system?
That's probably the case, or at least a part of it, but it's crazy that it's gotten to that point. If somebody finds a food item in the wild and decides to eat it, the consequences should be 100% on them. It doesn't even have to apply to food, either.
If I find a block heater on the ground, install it into my car, and then my car catches fire; I'm not going to go after the manufacturer of the block heater. I'm the idiot who decided to do something stupid.
That being said there's real life cases which indicate that yes, people are stupid and will sue over their own stupidity, so I'm not surprised at all.
What if you eat the block heater?
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
The UK needs to cut some bureaucrat middle management and allocate the funds to the social programs they’ve austeritied into symbolic existence.
Dailymail is not a reputable source.
This is to keep people safe. Only those that have taken the Banana Self Defense class are certified for consumption of these bananas.
The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
I don't know anything about British courts, but I doubt that any court is going to find anybody guilty of any major crime for collecting bananas washing up on the beach, for which the corporation that lost them got an insurance settlement to cover the loss. That's salvage, and salvage rights are long established.
While the coastguard was clear that they didn't mean the bananas
this does not include perishable goods like foodstuffs.
Either way though, everyone here IS following maritime salvage law.
The "long established" rule that is that the owner has all rights to the cargo and wreck, but must compensate those who assist in recovery if the owner agrees to assistance
The British maritime law that keeps getting referenced was put into place initially to ensure that people would be compensated completely when assisting. Previously, when it was a raw 'handshake' agreement, there would be negotiations before helping, or Party A would screw over Party B with a low-ball reward, or Party B would just nope out of the situation out of fear of not getting reimbursed.
The shipping company in this situation sent a list of missing stuff. If you find missing stuff, you report it, and they know how much you should be compensated and make sure you get it. In this case, they want their expensive refrigeration equipment.
Those children are criminals that should be punished and locked up! /s
Their source for it potentially being illegal comes from the daily heil so I would ignore it
As I wrote kn the other post, the daily mail is a shit rag that only publishes ragebait stuff.
Second, the authority in charge of recovery shipwrecked stuff that washes up later clarified that no, they are not going to be arrested.
People should stay away because the local authority needs to clear up, but if you take some and don't impede operations it's ok.
I have reported the post a) for misinformation b) for being from a source so unreliable Wikipedia has banned it c) from a source that is racist and supported the literal 20th century German Nazi party
I included your Guardian link as evidence of the misinformation
The upvote/downvote ratio is beyond recovery now so I encourage others to do the same.
Police, customs authorities, and the Receiver of Wrecks have warned beachcombers not to eat the bananas or to take them home.
This is the only mention in the linked article.
I'm gonna go there, eat as many free bananas as I can because wasting food is ew, and use my glowing radioactive body to fuel a sweet rave beach party
I hope they will sue seagull as well
Bananas Galore!
The West Sussex Bananna Party.
No banannation without taxation.

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