this is exactly what copper would say

Looks like they're burying it. The buried stuff does have a small copper locate wire. Or maybe its aluminum? I don't know. Better check

Sure this will prevent the meth heads from stealing it, but it will attract a much larger and more dangerous predator - the North American Excavator.

If it's real copper, they have to tell you. It's in the constitution.

How bad is your neighborhood that you have to label cable spools to prevent material theft???

Thieves don't care if it's a nice neighborhood. It happens on building sites everywhere. They don't mind driving a long way.
- But how much copper they gotta steal to pay for driving out to it? I need to check the price of copper.
Even when it's fully installed, people will try to steal the copper cables. In the power industry it's a real problem with people removing the earthing, not always noticeable right away, but then it's not safe to work on anymore.
- File this under frequently found dead. Substations get hit like this and then the guy dies walking away
It's a really common thing in construction yards.
- True. Construction sites helped me build lots of bike and skateboard ramps in the 80s.
  Did you know they also used to leave keys in the heavy equipment?
At one of my prior jobs (Chicos FAS,Ft Myers, FL) a maintenance guy got fired when they caught him stealing cables for copper about 10 years ago.
Here in Germany, they're literally stealing the overhead lines off of the train tracks.
The entire continent of africa

If not copper, why copper shaped?

Bull shit! They don’t lay fiber anywhere that rural and meth looking! It’s copper in disguise! Geet ‘um!

They specifically lay fiber in rural areas, cuz it’s federally subsidized
- They lay it in rural areas because it's cheaper to maintain and requires less permiting compared to city installation where there are more buried utilities.

people stealing your shit for scrap is only going to get worse as food prices go up and wages stay slave-y

copper tubing on your a/c, the tailgate off your truck, your catalytic converter-- easy money

Wouldnt fiber optic cable be worth more? 🤔

Yeah , but you won't find a buyer , the thing with copper and metals is you can easily sell them off in most cases.
No, check ebay if you don't believe me. It's not exactly plentiful, but there are enough contractors with several hundred/thousand feet left over from big jobs who are selling it for wholesale or less. It's not like you can recycle it, and splicing is unreliable without tools that cost as much as a car, so if you've got a partial spool you need to get rid of you'll probably have to sell it at a loss.
- are you saying they wouldn't find a buyer?
Yeah, but you wouldn't find a buyer
- Time to start an Internet equipment company.
yeah but no buyer

either i know where that is or they're all like that

Putting my geoguessr to the test-
For sure US, Pine trees, wood fences, trailers, political sign- David Hogan? cant make it out, not St Augustine grass-maybe paspalum?, Barn/stable implies horses or cows maybe.
Im guessing north-central Florida/south Georgia. Sticking the pin somewhere close to Taylor Florida or right on the border of GA.
Sorry, im not trying to dox just having some fun. :P
- People: The surveillance state will eliminate privacy!
  Rando on the internet: If you wanted your house to be private you shouldn't have had grass.

If you're a copper, you have to tell me.

God dammit, I don't have any original thoughts.
- We all thought it. ¯(_)/¯
- Thank you, I am now reassured in my DuckDuckGo-fu after looking this up because I don't watch the Simpsons.

Actually so lame that they have to do this. Cant have shit in Detroit (or wherever this is)

…have you ever been to Detroit? Because that is not what Detroit looks like lol
- Ill just leave that here for you. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cant-have-shit-in-detroit

I dunno who is even still stealing copper considering that a lot of yards are asking for proof of ownership before they accept it. Copper-nabbers are opportunistic, and won't take the time to forge an original invoice.

Copper spools have the sheathing stripped off, wire cut to reasonable lengths, then brought to multiple recyclers in stages.
To be sure, the odd idiot will show up with a unadulterated spool and try to get paid, but most that go to the effort of abducting these things off the side of the road aren't entirely stupid.
Then again, a less scrupulous yard might still buy the spool as it comes and strip it themselves.
That's exactly what a copper thief would say.
- Get 'em, boys.
Some people were about to buy a house then on the day of closing, they inspect the house one last time and found all the copper pipes missing lol
So they had to re-negotiate about the purchase price
Copper-nabbers are opportunistic, and won’t take the time to forge an original invoice.
I dunno, it's kind of hard to spell "Ea-nāṣir" correctly.

That is just what someome with a lot of copper would say!

r/trashy

Bold of them to assume copper thieves can read.

Been needing to finish the mancave, even BETTER!

wait fiber optic is like power lines??

In some localities fibre optic is strung on the power lines, yes.
In some it is buried.
All you're looking at is the outer protective sheath.

I feel like you could real easily just steel that roll and of fiber optic cable and sell it? Like that much of the stuff must be rather valuable. Also they labelled it for you so that you know what it is

Fiber optic cable is just glass or nylon, sealed with a thermoplastic. It really is one of the cheapest kinds of cables to make, maybe ever. It's really not worth anything when anyone who needs to run fiber can just buy a brand new spool for the same price as a spool from four guys in a shitty pickup truck who can't describe why they even had it to begin with.
Who would you sell it to? The same telecom company? The same company that installs it? Might as well steal the tires off the installation team truck and sell it back to them.
- I think turning someone's tires to solid steel would be pretty funny
Sell it to who? Most business must keep records of the stuff they use in their books. A roll of optic fiber this large would cost a substantial amount of money, so using one "off the books" would require some creativity. And I'm not sure there's much use for individuals for that much.
Copper is interesting because there are business that buys it by weight for recycling purposes.
It's really that valuable, the bulk prices I've found on Alibaba are around $25-$30 per KILOMETER!

Um... What kind of fiber optic?

TOSLINK
- i mean, you can do that if you want

If enough people believe it's copper, it's good enough.

If the right people don't think it's just fiber, then it's no longer good enough.