I think it's primarily a small town thing. In my home town, we don't have trash pick up. Instead, we have a transfer station (town dump) where residents bring their trash, recycling, scrap metal and garage queen Colnagos...

My dad is friendly with the guys that work there and they set anything with two wheels aside for him. If it's Walmart junk (99% of the time it is) it gets tossed into the scrap metal pile. If its a mint 60's Raleigh Sports, it comes home and is given to me :-)