Glass breaks, paper flies - the loot's gone hours before the waste company even arrives.

''They're like an army out there,'' said Johnson. ''They're in trucks. They're on cell phones. It's a business.''

With prices for aluminum, cardboard and newsprint going up and an economic slowdown putting added pressure on people's pocketbooks, curbside refuse has become a hot commodity.

A truck piled high with mixed recyclables can fetch upward of $1,000; newspapers alone can grab about $600.

''These guys are becoming much more organized,'' said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Norcal Waste Systems Inc., a garbage and recycling company in San Francisco and other cities throughout Northern California. ''We're seeing organized fleets of professional poachers with trucks.''

The issue has caught the attention of state and local officials, who are seeking more stringent regulations to curb theft, saying lost revenue threatens the financial viability of their recycling programs.

Pilfering cans, bottles and other recyclables from bins is already illegal in many cities. In San Francisco, poachers can be fined up to $500 and get six months jail time. In New York, thieves are subject to arrest, vehicle impoundment and fines of up to $5,000.

California lawmakers are also considering legislation that would make large-scale, anonymous recycling more difficult by forcing scrap and paper recyclers to require picture identification for anyone bringing in more than $50 worth of cans, bottles or newspapers and to pay such individuals with checks rather than cash.

In Westchester County, N.Y., a proposal would make large-scale curbside recycling theft punishable by time behind bars and fines of up to $2,000.

Companies are also taking measures of their own.

Norcal Waste contracted private investigators and installed surveillance cameras at San Francisco spots frequented by poachers. The investigators compiled dozens of photographs of old pickup trucks covered by spray-painted graffiti and piled high with recyclables allegedly stolen from residents.

The free weekly The East Bay Express, which covers Oakland, Berkeley and other Bay Area cities, hired an ex-police detective to stake out thieves and began retrofitting curbside newspaper racks to make them theft-resistant because thousands of fresh copies go missing some weeks.

NorCal Waste Systems estimates that in 2007, more than $469,000 in recyclables were stolen in hundreds of trucks. Officials from the City of Concord, 30 miles east of San Francisco, figure they're out $40,000 a year, while the city of Berkeley values the loss upward of $50,000 annually.

In the past five years, aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange have climbed from around 65 cents a pound in 2003 to a record high of $1.50 a pound in July. Recycled paper and cardboard prices have also spiked, driven in large part by a burgeoning recycled paper export market.

''Newsprint is a hot grade,'' said Mark Arzoumanian, editor-in-chief of Official Board Markets, a publication covering the paper industry. ''There is a voracious demand in China and India for recycled paper.''

Homeless advocates worry that a crackdown on recycling could hurt the very poor, who rely on the meager earnings drummed up by turning over bottles and cans for refund values of 5 cents to 10 cents per container.

In a survey conducted in 2000 by the nonprofit advocacy group Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, 75 percent of homeless people in Los Angeles said they depended on income from recycling.

The group is supporting California's pending Senate bill, but only because it is aimed specifically at large-scale recycling thieves.