Scrumping: Thievery or Windfall?

When the word scrumping came up recently, it made me wonder whether what I do when I encounter roadside berries, fruits and timber is ethical. Hmm, am I stealing, as indicated by the Cambridge English dictionary definition of scrumping: "an old English word for stealing fruit such as apples from trees"?

It's not that I trespass on people's lands and fields to harvest fruit they would otherwise use. I don't climb over fences or cross boundary lines. Rather, I see it as an innocent way to use produce that would otherwise go to waste, of making use of public bounty along roadways and other non-privatized places. I don't like to believe I might be stealing - though I know it's not my land ... I usually only take things that appear to have been abandoned or forgotten, whose use or value to others is negligible.

But then I consider whether I'm merely seeing our resources from a capitalist viewpoint ... since nothing goes to waste in nature; if I don't "use" it, it will be recycled, composted and become transformed into a life form again. It's all part of the same network and cycle - it's not just a usability issue, and it won't ever go 'to waste,' for nature has none! But it's also my way of being thrifty, of making use of produce that I don't have to pay money for.

There's a very fine line between scrumping (frowned upon) and foraging (acceptable), a gray area indeed! A more modern view of scrumping is found in the free dictionary, Wiktionary, and is explained as "To gather windfalls or small apples left on trees," with no indication of thievery or trespassing. But I'm still pondering over my perception of waste ...