Stealing Recyclables

Last week I worked from home one day and to my surprise I saw someone rummaging through my recycling bin before the city picked it up. The only thing she took was the aluminum. I am torn by this situation. On one hand - at least the material is getting recycled and I assume the person digging through my recycling bin needs the money she will get from selling the aluminum. But on the other hand – the material is probably the property of the city once I put it in my bin. The revenue associated with the sale of the recyclables is probably keeping my trash and recycling costs down. So will my fees increase if this keeps up?

Evidently in hard economic times this is becoming more common across the country. See this article in the San Francisco Chronicle about recycling “poachers”.