After, take it to City Hall and use the restroom to flush the shreds down the toilet. That way when the sewage plant finds all the shredded money they'll investigate and find that the shreds stop at city hall and conclude that City Hall is flushing money down the toilet. It'll be the most anti-climactic news headline ever.

 

this is a no brainer.
i would not hesitate for one minute to try to find the proper owner.

many years ago when i was a teenager i found a money clip with $745 in it.
i called the police to ask them what to do. they told me to put an ad in the paper saying that i found it, and if you can identify it, it was yours.

after 2 months and over 500 phone calls, no one was even close to the amount of money, or size of the bills in the clip, so i kept it.
a year later, i was at a Friends work place, and he asked me what ever happened to it. his boss heard us talking, and commented on how he lost his money clip in the general area where i found it the year before.

he described the clip perfectly, and the fact that there was 6 $100 bills, 2 50's, 2 20's and a 5 in it.

the guy did not read the paper, so he never saw the ads.

i told him it would take me some time to pay him back, cause i was out of work, and broke.

he gave me a job on the spot, and it took me 3 month to save enough to pay him back, and when i tried giving it to him, he refused to take the money, because i was honest and did the rite thing.

that had a lasting effect on me, and i have never taken anything that was not mine.