Bottle Deposits and Identity Theft

It took me a little time to figure this out, but New York State has a super annoying policy of charging 5 cents per bottle in deposits.  The amount is too paltry for people to fret about (less than a buck for a 12-pack), but just enough to encourage people to riffle through my dumpster looking for items that were thrown away.  Except, that they aren't thrown away - these are in the dumpster for our zero-sort recycling pick up.  The third night I was in my new apartment, there was someone, knee deep in cardboard and glass, looking for cans and bottles with the deposit labels on them.

Perhaps if recycling rates were lower, I'd be in favor of the program.  Or, if the deposit was so high that empty Coke cans were treated as currency and guarded until redeemed... so infrequently tossed aside that too few remained in the open for people to try to collect.  Instead, the middle ground finds me worried about what else I've thrown into the recycling lately.  Papers?  Important papers?  Needless to say, a criss-cross shredder was high on my list of purchases for the new apartment.