Why did someone take our paper recycling?

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

We live off of North St., and this afternoon we put our paper recycling out on the curb in a paper shopping bag. A couple of hours later, the whole bag was gone. Is there a legitimate reason that someone would have wanted it, or is someone up to identity theft shenanigans?

Comments

[valadil.livejournal.com]

Kindling?

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

Art project? Cold homeless person? Hoarder who can't believe you threw all that great paper away?

[red-liner.livejournal.com]

I probably have a limited mind, but I can't think of any legit reason for taking it. Here's hoping it's just random wackiness!

For what it's worth, we wait to put our paper out until when we're leaving for work on trash day, ideally right before the truck comes by.

[jadelennox]

Do you shred receipts and other identifiable suchlike?

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

I'm usually pretty good about ripping up anything particularly sensitive by hand. It might be time to invest in a shredder, though.

[kalimba21.livejournal.com]

maybe a long shot, but when I used to put my paper in nice strong paper bags for recycling, people would dump out the paper so they could use the bag to collect cans and bottles, leaving my paper drifting all over the road. Now I always tie my paper with string.

Might they have been more polite and dumped your paper into a trashcan?

[maru-mari.livejournal.com]

I used to take paper for pet bedding. Just an idea. A whole bag would be a real treat for some rats after visiting the shredder.

If you're worried; in the future, sort out sensitive from non-sensitive and do something more defensive with the sensitive stuff. Check your credit report in about a month. :)

FWIW

[mamabunny72.livejournal.com]

I've seen people rummaging through paper recycling for coupons.

[lemonlies.livejournal.com]

Packing materials, too, would be one of my thoughts, if a good chunk of newspapers were in it.

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Phone your credit card companies and ask them to contact you about any purchases over $(you pick a number). They don't like fraud because it costs them money to chase down.

[turil.livejournal.com]

I've taken paper out for recycling for many, many reasons. It's great for tons of projects, household uses, and art.

Most recently my housemate took newspaper to shred for the compost bin, to add dry/brown material to it.

And I took some a while back for paper mache. And in preparation of making geodesic dome (http://www.yesmag.ca/projects/geodesic.html) with the kids I take care of.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Amex will let you do this automatically from their web site. They will send you an email if you make any purchases above $x amount.

[latvianchick.livejournal.com]

I occasionally take a bag of someone's recycled shredded paper for vermicompost.

[cos]

Instead of a shredder: Rip up anything sensitive into a few pieces (specifically through the middle of things like signatures or numbers you want to hide), put one in the trash, one in the recycling, one in the bag that will be next week's recycling, etc. You could put a piece in your pocket and put it in the office recycling the next day. Very easy to do, as effective as a shredder against your typical adversary (and possibly *more* effective against a determined adversary), and costs no money.

[ron_newman]

Shredders are cheap, though. I think I bought mine at Staples for something like $9.99