Confiscated items sell well

IN TRANSIT:A PASSENGER travelling from Dublin to Sligo to visit her sister who had recently given birth was stopped by security and made to hand over a small hamper from the upmarket cosmetic retailer L'Occitane.

The hamper was a beautifully wrapped and expensive present. Because the flight was internal and the passenger had no baggage to check in, it never dawned on her that the same regulations on liquids would apply to this short domestic flight as apply on long-haul flights. But they do. Dismayed, she waved goodbye to the present and asked security staff what would happen to it. They’d no idea.

The answer to the question depends on what airport in what part of the world you get caught in. Your precious nail file or fun bottle of Grey Goose vodka could end up raising funds for charity, being flogged on eBay or heading straight for a dumpster.

The Dublin Airport Authority manages its collection of confiscated items with efficiency. It has two categories which it won’t let on planes: prohibited items (axes, machetes, shotguns, Swiss Army knives and nail clippers); and surrendered items, which include all liquids in containers of more than 100ml.

The DAA says it has collected some 40,000 surrendered items since restrictions on what liquids passengers can bring on planes were introduced in November 2006. “The vast majority of the public now know what items are prohibited. People have got used to it since 2006 and we are not confiscating nearly as much as we would have even two years ago,” said a DAA spokeswoman. She said that most items which end up being held at the security points are things passengers have simply forgotten are in their luggage.

All the liquids perceived to have a value, including unopened bottles of wine and spirits, cosmetics and perfumes – half-used bottles of shampoo are dumped daily – are collected by the authority and donated eight times a year to a designated charity. The charity then make up hampers from the items which they sell to raise funds. This year’s charity is Beaumount Hospital Foundation.

WE ALSO CONTACTEDthe British Airport Authority to find out what happens to items left at security desks in UK airports. A spokesman said passengers can check-in the offending items but, if they don't or can't, then the items (collected weekly by a waste management company) are recycled or destroyed.

We had the spokesman treble-check, as we couldn’t believe that perfectly good bottles of whiskey, unopened tubes of cosmetics and Swiss Army Knifes just get thrown away. He confirmed that UK airports dump the stuff.

Tightened security started after the 9/11 attacks in the US and it is in the US where, arguably, the most evolved method of dealing with confiscated goods has been developed. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has collected over 10 million items a year at security checkpoints since 2001.

Shampoo and other liquids in containers larger than 100ml are usually immediately disposed of through private waste contractors but items which are deemed to have some value are donated to state surplus agencies.

Rather than dumping it or giving it to charity, these agencies flog it for profit. State agencies and youth organisations, such as the Boy Scouts of America, are given first stab at the pile of unclaimed knives and can buy them at discounted prices. The surplus agencies have found that the best avenue for selling penknives, nail clippers and the like is online auction houses like eBay. The products sell for around 50 per cent less than the average retail price.

Some of the deals are remarkable. You can get a deer-hunting kit – including a gut-slitting knife, a multi-tool, outsized large safety pins, rope and torch – for $50 (€39).

According to the agencies, hundreds of pairs of handcuffs and assorted bondage paraphernalia also make it into their warehouses each year. This is doubly unfortunate for the unlucky passengers who’ve had them confiscated – not only do they have to contend with losing the stuff and the public embarrassment when the case is opened, it probably spoils their weekends away too.