STEALING!

Its not necessarily stealing if your throwing out someones garbage. Stealing would be taking something without permission that belongs to someone else and keeping it for yourself, giving to someone else, or selling it for profit... But discarding worthless junk could be construed as an act of cleanliness. However, its impolite to do so without permission since one mans junk is often another mans treasure.. If your throwing out some dirty diapers though, the intent is not theft, just odor control

Lady Daffodil said:

I'm not talking about garbage, or dirty diapers, I'm talking about something that is perfectly good that the person does not have permission to dispose of.

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I was kind of joking about the diapers.... But you weren't specific about what was being tossed out.. But if someone is throwing stuff out, I don't think its stealing as much as discarding things without permission, which could still be construed as wrong. There's a lot of hoarders who would resent someone for throwing stuff out that they consider valuable or useful, but sometimes its done for their benefit and health.. In such cases, its not so much theft as it is an unauthorized disposal of another persons property.

Its hard to judge without all the information here. Was it accidentally? Was it harmful to others? Lots of questions before I could really give my honest opinion here.