I have been contributing to a discussion over at Infopop, where someone asked the question, "Is collecting from a dumpster still stealing?" The thread is full of people trying to rationalize stealing grease from dumpsters that belong to oil collectors. Here are a few of the comments people have made:

"How can they claim the oil still sitting in the dumpsters being theirs since they pay the restaurants by volume AFTER it has been collected!"

"My question was regarding legality, not moral. Legality is what it boils down to, agree?"

"...the collectors overwhelmingly are a bunch of redneck cowboys and I find it highly likely that a lot of them wouldn't be bothered ( or able to read) any written contract..."

"If there is a difference between oil and trash, what is it? If it's just the value, then it seems to me the contractors want it all their own way."

Wow. It seems the sense of entitlement to low prices that comes with a petroleum addiction is alive and well among the homebrew community.