is there a connection here?
On the one hand, people are putting themselves and their communities into extreme danger trying to steal recyclable materials.
On the other hand, there's the harsh reality of trying to survive on a benefit.
Are these two things connected?
Poverty brings desperation, and when people see no legitimate means to get by in life, they tend to improvise. That improvising can take the form of desperate, dangerous, and illegal methods.
There are things the government could do to even the playing field, make life a little less desperate for the vulnerable. Things like not trashing the economy by firing as many people as possible, or not giving tax breaks to landlords or kickbacks to tobacco companies, for example. All that money that went to making life easier for people who already have it easy, for people whose livelihoods are built on the exploitation of others - or straight up addiction, in the case of the tobacco companies, all that money could have gone to alleviating the stress on vulnerable people.
Poverty is a political choice.