One Man's 'Rubbish...' Depletion of the Archaeological Record

The problem of ignorance, one man's
 rubbish is somebody else's Treasure,
 if you know what you are looking
 at (Steve Taylor knows). 

On a metal detecting forum near you, there is an admission that artefact hunters are simply throwing away the archaeological artefacts they remove from the archaeological record, in one thread members are boasting about how much lead 'scrap' (ie artefacts) they are sending to the scrap yard:

Post by ROCK HOPPER » Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:07 am
The last time I took a hundred KG of lead to the scrap man I got £110 for it [...]

While in another thread about how detctorists have spotted finds that their fellows have missed (such as "I picked up a Roman coin from the surface last year - from right in the middle of someone's footprint!"), around half way down we meet a comment full of regret:

Phil2401 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 11:19 pm
We've all been there - even on trusted club digs [...] Personally I'd like to be nominated as the one who collects the scrap buckets from the field at the end of the day.... I bet there's all sorts of stuff in there that don't deserve to be!

Scrap buckets of material that is going to be sold at the scrapyard and to be melted down. and someone else adds

oldartefact » Wed Apr 08, 2020 11:24 pm
[...] Phil You are right ... we often found cruddy romans in the buckets ... and one lucky member found a hammered in a piece of folded lead!! Sometimes its better to turn up at the end of the day, and pilfer the scrap bucket .... [emoticon], [emoticon], [emoticon].