[Avodah] LITTER ON SHABBOS

[Chana Luntz]

RMB wrote:

>Then I stopped and thought: Is it muqtzah? Not only is it trash, but it's
now a sack that was nolad on Shabbos.

>More detail: When I was a child fewer people were aware of this, but snack
packets start out as flat sheets. The product is dropped on it in distinct
>piles, and then the plastic or foil is cut, folded and sealed -- all the
sides at once. The first time the packed becomes a sack is when you tear
open >one side. This raises problems with the "you can tear for food for
immediate consumption" rule I was raised with. CYLR. And thus, the litter
was likely >nolad on Shabbos.

I don't understand this concern.

The usual heter for opening such a snack pack is based on it either being a
mustaki - ie a less than perfect form of kli, that because of its throw-away
nature you will not be concerned with being metaken kli, but are only
focussing on getting at the contents (the classic form being a previously
broken barrel held together by pitch as per Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim siman
114 si'if 1) or, more strongly, like the date baskets which in turn are
likened to the nut shells in Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim Siman 114 si'if 8.

And most hold, as you have suggested, that you can tear (or open a tin can)
for food for immediate consumption (although some, like Rav Moshe appear to
hold that while that is true theoretically, you shouldn't do so l'ma'ase,
because it will confuse people) and this is even though the container itself
will continue to "contain" until used, because your mind is not on the
container, but what it contains, given its throw away nature.  

But this is precisely because you are not concerned with the container, it
merely being like a skin (or a shell) for the contents.  A nut shell in
particular, grows on the nut, and hardens on it, and there is no concern
that there is nolad when you shell your nut, precisely because you have no
use for the nut shell once the contents are removed.  If you are going to
use the container afterwards (eg you will use the tin can to store nails, as
was apparently the practice at one point in Eretz Yisrael) then it does
become a problem according to many.

Now even if you do not hold like these opinions, but follow the more
stringent opinions that forbid tearing such packets or containers on shabbas
(whether or not they start out a flat sheets seem to me to be irrelevant, if
you hold that the Chachamim agree to Rabbi Eliezer regarding mustaki, and
hence that is how we posken, and if you do not hold that the snack packs
fall within the definition of mustaki, and of course if you hold that the
Chachamim don't actually agree with Rabbi Eliezer, then you can open a kli
shalem, without even needing to go through the mustaki question, so long as
you are not actually concerned for the kli), given that the owner of the
packet clearly did not posken like you, and the packet was not mukza to them
- then surely once the packet has been used and thrown away, it would have
the same din vis a vis you as if you had found nut shells scattered in the
street (or perhaps, saw somebody obviously Jewish scattering such nutshells
in the street), since I would have thought they would take on the status
allocated them by the owners.  Not that that is so straightforward, but I
don't see whether or not snack packs start out as flat sheets onto which the
contents are dropped, or open sacks which are then sealed as making any
difference.

>Tir'u baTov!
>-Micha

Shavuah Tov

Chana