For whatever it's worth, I see this same thing here in Los Angeles. Scrappers cut open fridges, minifridges, AC units, etc and vent the refrigerant wherever they found the device (usually right on the curb). If you could make it profitable for them to capture it, they would. They're not making a ton of money off the copper.
Yeah that's definitely an issue! It's probably a bit less tractable than what we're dealing with because
1. Scrappers likely don't have the skills, equipment or inclination that AC technicians do.
2. Those self-contained units typically have a lot less refrigerant than the split AC systems (or large chillers) we see, which require venting in order to remove once installed. A refrigerator might have only 30 grams of charge, vs a split system with 2-3 kg.
