to trawl through other people's recycling?

[MorrisZapp]

I live in a flat so my recycling has to get chucked into a communal wheelybin thing.

But on the walk to work I pass lovely big houses who put out individual boxes of recycling, including a 'paper only' box.

I love to have a quick peep at these boxes - they don't have lids - and grab things that catch my eye, particularly the Sunday Times homes section and any decent looking glossy mags.

Is this basically ok? Or is it a bit like prying into their personal stuff?

I think it is prying tbh. It's their property.

That said, I wouldn't mind you taking my glossy magazines - I hate the idea of wasting them, but once I've read them, I don't need them any more.

I suppose it's ok...it does sound a bit strange though

I wouldn't mind someone taking my old magazines, but I might be a bit surprised if I caught someone rifling though my recycling.

Look, I wouldn't put anything in my recycling box that I wouldn't mind being exposed to the vulgar gaze. You'd be daft to - it could blow all over the street. If I've got glossy magazines I pile them neatly on the top for any takers. And I'm not above seizing gleefully on the odd copy of Vogue or Country House Interiors I might find in the boxes of others - though I'd feel a bit awkward if suddenly confronted by the householder!

YANBU

I wouldn't mind at all. I have the opposite problem, there must be an environmentally aware alcoholic round here somewhere because empty cheap vodka bottles appear in my recycling box if I leave it out for too long. And! round the corner is a brethren house, their box is often full of empty bourbon bottles, expensive stuff too

I would love someone to take them out of my recycling bin! I feel sad that they get read once and then end up being shredded.

I though this was going to be about checking people were putting the correct things in the boxes!!

Go for it, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to take mine.

Around here I have seen people put 'rubbish' out and a sign saying help your self on it (things like wooden pallets etc). My dad did it once with spare paving slabs we had.

I swipe big plastic bottles out of other people's recycling to use as mini-greenhouses.... They're still being recycled, just by me, not the council.