When my mother died, I brought her journals home. She had notebook after notebook filled with thoughts, ideas, quotations, rants, and recipes. I have read them all, and put aside the pages I want to keep.

There is now a cardboard box full of paper suitable for disposal in the blue recycle bin. Problem is, my recycle bin is full.

On trash day, when the neighbors and I put out our trash bins for pickup, is it ethical for me to put my box of paper in someone else's half-full recycle bin?

Would it be all right for me to toss a black garbage bag of garbage into someone else's black garbage bin?

Or does the bin belong to the person, is it property, and I'm trespassing (or littering)? Should I hold on to the box until next week and dispose of it then?

What is the ethics of trash disposal?