Court:Garbage is Private in Meth Case

Perhaps you great legal minds in the blogospere can explain this one to me. How on Gods good green earth can a court rule that a persons garbage be protected. Ever since I saw the movie "The Star Chamber" with Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook I have wondered how such a position could be rationalized. After all, would any clear thinking person actually have a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning their garbage?

At the the request of sheriff's detective David Knechtel, a city garbage collector
took Sweeny's can from the curb as usual but dumped it into an empty hopper so
Knechtel could go through it a few blocks away. Knechtel found chemicals and
other materials used in meth making and cited his findings in obtaining a
warrant to search Sweeny's house.

If it was in a garage or storage building it would be understandable, but it was in a can in plain site and exposed to anyone and everyone. Would you have an equal expectation of privacy standing nude at your curb as you would say, in your bathroom? Would a person be arrested simply for watching you standing nude at your curb as they certainly would for peering through your bathroom window? That's what this ruling would seem to suggest. Also, would the garbage no longer be considered "yours" , but rather, the city's. Once the garbageman assumed possession of the garbage have you not tacitly relinquished all rights connected with said garbage. To think otherwise seems to be quite a feat of tortured logic to me.