8. The steep price of cable theft

Copper cables, as well as other materials made of copper, continue to be targets of thieving hooligans because of the money that scrap copper can fetch. There's no "good" to this story, and this year we've paid some attention to the "bad" and the "ugly" associated with copper-cable theft. In one case we showed you a row of houses that exploded after a cable theft left its earthing system unstable. In another we showed you (if you dared enough to click all the way through) images of a badly scarred would-be copper cable thief who spoke remorsefully about his actions.