I am planning a trip to Rugby this weekend, and was disappointed to see that some of the caches I would have liked to look for en route have been disabled. I don't usually post on this or any other discussion forum (because I find them so addictive!) but I did want to share a few thoughts on this problem, which will probably only get worse in the future with increased publicity about geocaching.
Firstly, I believe that the 'environmental' claim is utter nonsense. Anyone can see that geocaching done correctly has a minimal or beneficial effect on the environment. I would guess that these (not very highly-educated, judging by their grammar and spelling) people are using it as a peg on which to hang their petty vandalism. This is the sort of mentality that enjoys destroying things and spoiling other people's enjoyment - the same sort of mentality that led someone to snap off some newly-planted trees in our village high street recently.
So what do we do about it? The advice from geocaching.com to notify the police had me in stitches. I mean, can you imagine strolling into your local police station and saying you wanted to report the theft of a plastic lunchbox?
I think the most important thing is to KEEP REPLACING THE CACHES. Replace them with small, inexpensive containers, with low-value swaps, and warn people not to leave trackable items for the time being. It's not so much fun vandalising something that isn't very valuable, and I bet if these people have to keep going back to the same place, they will eventually lose interest. They want to see those caches wiped off the maps, so don't indulge them!
Another idea that someone has mentioned is to turn vulnerable caches into multis. It's dead easy for vandals to follow the co-ordinates straight to a nice big box of treasure, and my hunch is that they are less likely to go to the effort of following a trail.
My commiserations to everyone who has had their caches vandalised.
DON'T LET THESE TWITS WIN!!