Woman fined for taking food thrown out by supermarket wins court battle in Poland

A woman who was stopped by security and then fined by police for taking food that had been thrown out by a supermarket has had her punishment overturned in court.

The shop argued that the food was in a waste container belonging to it and located on its premises, and thus was stolen. But the judged ruled that it is reasonable for people to assume that items left in bins have been discarded and that taking them should therefore not be treated as theft.

In August, Ewelina Głowacka, a 31-year-old PhD student, retrieved several items from a waste bin outside an outlet of budget retail chain Biedronka in the city of Białystok. The products she took included bananas, tomatoes, carrots, grapes, yoghurt and cream, which were all still fit for consumption, reports newspaper Kurier Poranny.

Głowacka says she retrieves thrown-away food so it will not go to waste, as part of her efforts to protect the environment – a practice often referred to in English as freeganism (or freeganizm in Polish).

However, on this occasion, a security guard from the supermarket tried to stop her from leaving with the food. Głowacka says he threatened her, used pepper spray and tried to handcuff her.

But according to Jeronimo Martins Polska – which owns the Biedronka chain – it was Głowacka who was aggressive, pushing the security guard away with her legs and cutting his arms. That confrontation is being separately investigated by prosecutors in Białystok, reports Kurier Poranny.

Eventually, Głowacka agreed to enter the shop with a box of items removed from the dumpster and security called the police. Officers then issued her with a 200 zloty fine, which Głowacka initially accepted but later took to court in an effort to have it revoked.

“I just took a few things that were still fit to eat so they wouldn’t go to waste,” she said. “I have a huge sense of injustice that I am being punished for something that is actually good for the planet and for other people.”

During the hearing, a police representative said that, according to information provided by the company, the items taken by Głowacka were in containers intended for disposal and was therefore still the property of the shop.

“After speaking to shop employees, who passed on information that the containers were on the shop’s premises and contained goods they are made accountable for, officers fined the woman,” Katarzyna Molska-Zarzecka of Bialystok police told Kurier Poranny. “The losses were estimated at 108.99 zloty.”

Yesterday, however, the district court in Białystok ruled in Głowacka’s favour, overturning the fine she had received.

Judge Tomasz Pannert, providing justification for the ruling, argued that Głowacka had not committed the offence she was charged with, as in order to commit theft, a direct intention to misappropriate someone else’s belongings is required. In this case, abandoned things cannot be the object of theft.

“In the estimation of a regular person, in a waste bin […] there are things that the original owner, by placing them in such a bin, made clear that it wanted to get rid of, that they are redundant and unnecessary to them,” said the judge, quoted by financial news service Money.pl.

Glowacka welcomed the verdict. “I am glad that I won justice, that I succeeded. It is also a sign for other people who do this: that it is possible, that they should remember their rights and that they are not doing anything wrong,” she told reporters after the court announced its decision.

Main photo credit: Cybularny/Wikimedia Commons (under public domain)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.