That makes me really sad. Our town dump has a pay-to-dispose system for electronics like that. It’s $15 for anything from laptops and monitors, to ancient hulking mainframes, industrial equipment, stage lighting, you name it. The disposal container always had a “no scavenging” sign that I would ignore, and I’ve found some pretty sweet loot in there. Stuff like whole gaming PCs whose only problem is a single bad component, vintage analog turntables I’ve cleaned up and repaired, etc. recently the shipping container where the items are placed has been moved under a camera and a sticker system was implemented. I’m starting to think they might be profiting on both ends from it (the disposal fee from residents and money from a recycler/salvage maybe?) but I’m not quite sure. Or they’re just overly worried about liability from someone doing something dumb or unexpected, and getting someone hurt. The camera only sees who’s going in and out of the container though, not what happens inside there. My latest strategy to defeat these measures has been buying a sticker to gain access but bringing 2 pieces of unwanted junk, back my car up to partially block the view, then find something good in there and do a sneaky sticker swap onto my “decoy” item. I assume they check and count stickers sold vs. actual items stickered, but they can’t feasibly keep track of what things are or who brought what. Plus they’re understaffed, usually just 2 or 3 overworked guys handling everything for a town of 40,000, who are usually doing something useful besides sitting and watching the cameras. I also get the vibe they’re just happy to be making any money at all for the town, and don’t necessarily care unless something bad happens. It’s slightly unethical, sure, and I might get caught doing this eventually, but I don’t really care, and am willing to play dumb, act sorry, and take whatever minor slap on the wrist would be entailed with that. In my mind I’m not doing any harm, since they end up with the same net number of items in the end, plus I’m rescuing something and extending its useful life.