Milk crates are the best way to expand your media storage after the improvised cinder block bookshelf is full.
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Cost to the dairy industry, which has to buy replacements. I mean, theft is theft, that’s really all that it is, and Big Diary has a powerful lobby. My granddad owned a dairy farm, and for small guys like him, it was a not insubstantial cost to replace them. Bigger dairies could suck it up. But apparently the overall cost to the industry is an eye blistering $80 million a year. Pretty nice crates, truly.
Do I feel guilty? Nah. I never technically stole one myself, just acquired them from friends and family. Sure I did. Yep. Plus you can just buy them online these days.
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The real prize was the rectangular crates that held six gallon-sized containers (instead of four); that way, you could store your albums fully upright, and have room left over to stack some paperbacks in there.
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They will if you’re homeless. Or if you’re doing something that’s perfectly legal but they just don’t like. Trust me on this.
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Why is it illegal? The milk companies buy what they need and don’t want to subsidize record collection storage.
We encountered a poor schlub at Longwood College in the early 80’s that got busted for stealing a milk crate. The milk distributor offered to drop charges if he could collect 50 crates from the dorms around the campus. We suggested stealing them from behind the dinning hall. No idea if he collected enough or just stole more.
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The physics may be a challenge, but the neighborhood kids don’t make it any easier either.
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Seems like a fun challenge, if you wear the same safety harness as people on climbing walls.
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The failure mode looks to me like stepping on Lego bricks, but magnified. Ouch!
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What scares me most about the failure mode is that 1/6 of the brick faces will accept hands and feet to their full depth.
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If they locked like Lego bricks, the injuries would decrease for a while, but then resume with falls from 20’.
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"a milk crate my dad used as a propane tank holder "
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It’s not that it’s illegal to have milk crates – it’s just that most milk crates (much like beer kegs) are illegally obtained. They are the property of the manufacturer and are meant to be collected and reused by the manufacturer. People see stacks of them in grocery store loading docks and such and decide to take them for themselves (maybe) not realizing they are actually stealing someone’s property.
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Owning a milk crate is not illegal.
Possessing stolen property is illegal.
If you bought the milk crate from a milk crate supplier, then it’s perfectly legal. If it is stolen from a dairy or other company, then it is illegal.
My big annoyance is that it is really, really hard to buy the good milk crates legally. I know they would be expensive, but I don’t want the cheap, crappy ones, I want the good ones that are sturdy…
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The milk company crates are usually marked, “property of…” and sometimes have penalties mentioned. Talks of illegal milk crates are referencing the ones that remain property of the milk companies.
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Should have let some Germans do it.
Of course those are beer crates. We don’t do milk crates.
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Each column drum that makes up the column has a center hole to be able to interlock with its neighbor:
And they knew, 2500+ years ago, what a 19th century restorer didn’t, which was you couldnt just use an iron block as-is, you had to seal it with soft lead to prevent corrosion (current-day restorers use titanium/unleaded). I think the reason they didn’t use marble itself was perhaps the forces involved (when joining, and over its lifetime) would cause a stressed marble joining-block to shatter, whereas an iron block was malleable and would retain functionality. Eg, giving the whole column a greater survival ability in the event of earthquakes.
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I remember sneaking to the local grocery store’s loading dock to return some milk crates I had previously obtained. I finally had real furniture and they were taking up way too much space. I guess it can’t really be called “borrowing” them since I returned them to a different grocery chain hundreds of miles from where I got them.
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Don’t rely on media to evaluate the amplitude of trends.
It’s a big world, but the small stupids get amplified online.
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Ha! Perfect response 
In this case, the milk crate was attached to the swim platform of a boat to keep the tank out of the way while we were motoring around.
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