This situation reminds me of the old joke about the man who owned a boomerang. He became very upset one day and made an appointment with a psychiatrist. When they met, the man was obviously agitated. “Tell me what is troubling you,” the psychiatrist said.
“It’s my boomerang,” the man answered.
“Your boomerang?”
“Yes, I keep trying to throw it away but it keeps coming back.”
I told you it was an old joke. And also not a very good one. But I was thinking of it a couple of weeks ago when I tried to throw an old trash can away.
I put it out beside the main trash can since that was too full to put the discarded trash can into the main can.
The nice trash people didn’t take it.
The next week, I did put it into the main trash can. They carefully left it by the curb.
I’m glad they’re careful to not throw away something that might be useful. But I didn’t want the trash can any more. It was dirty and ripped up. So, I did what I should have done in the first place, and put it into a trash bag. The trash people took it. End of story.
Life continues to have lessons to teach us, if only we look for them. I wish I had a nice aphorism to sum this up, but I don’t. Sigh.
Biscuit City 
LOL! That reminds me of the time we used a perfectly good, heavy duty, clear bin to hold our recycling. Because it wasn't official looking, the workers took our recycling AND our bin! I'm telling you, be thankful! : )