Having wheeled her yellow-topped recycling bin to the kerb she was then left puzzled at what unfolded later that evening.

“When I came out of the house there was a fellow there with his own wheelie bin and he was going through the recycling bin,” Mrs Peachey said.

“I said ‘are you right there, mate, are you collecting something?’ and he said ‘I’m getting the bottles for collection’ and he said he had checked with the council and he said ‘they said it’s okay as long as I’m not trespassing’.

“I was taken aback, I thought are you up to no good, but once he told me I thought okay.”

Albury councillor Henk van de Ven, who chairs the committee which oversees the city’s waste management, confirmed the advice given to the scavenger.

“The council approach is that it’s not illegal to take stuff out of people’s bins, if people have it in bins they want to throw it away,” Cr van de Ven said.

“If they’re doing and if they litter and don’t put stuff back in the bin that’s when they would be in trouble.”

Greater Hume council’s director of environment and planning Colin Kane said a $250 ticketed fine applied in those circumstances.

“If they’re dropping stuff around bins and done it up and down the street I think they would be getting that ticket from me,” Mr Kane said.

“People would expect us to do something.”

Cr van de Ven said householders could put stickers on their bins to state there were no containers inside if they had already withheld the bottles and cans to claim deposits.

“It might be worth doing although they may not read the sticker if it is dark,” he said.

“In South Australia, where the deposit for containers has been in for a long time that’s something they’ve lived with, people going through bins to get containers to get some money.”

Mrs Peachey said she and husband Tyler ended up seeing the silver lining.

“We thought it was good because it gives us more room to put recyclables in,” she said.

Across in West Albury, retired council health and building employee Geoff Nye said he would continue to put cans and bottles in his bin because it was not worth the cost to travel to recycling vending machines in the north of the city.

“For a minimal count it wouldn’t cover your petrol,” Mr Nye said.

“For a person living here you’d have to hoard over 100 cans or bottles all together to make it worthwhile to go out to the machines.

“I thought a place like Albury should have ten or a dozen (collection points).”