Is this overreacting?

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So my mother threw something out into the recycling bin by accident. I was upset. I told her I would go through the bin. She insists on doing it herself.

As she is looking through the bin, I open the garage door. Our neighbor across the street sees my mother looking through the bin. She goes ballistic at me thinking the neighbor will get a bad impression of her digging through the recycling bin. She really lost it.

Is it that bad that the neighbor saw her going through the bin? Does it really make her look bad?

Oh not really, but NT's often get hung up about what others think. I doubt very much that the neighbour thought anything of her going through the bin, just that your mom was looking for something.

Sounds like my mom. Seriously, it would have been far more embarrassing, if she'd been caught going through the neighbor's bin.

i wouldnt think nothing of it unless she was proper halfway down the bin head first or something

The bin was in our garage.

I think most people have accidentally thrown away stuff before and tried to revover it, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, but I can imagine she does, I would.
Show her you appreciate her efforts, she did try.

yup, people care too much what people think, in my opinion.

Your mom definitely over-reacted, an overreaction that I'm guessing is based on how she was raised. Garbage is one of those things that are often a part of neurosis-causing taboos of "respectability."

She definitely over-reacted. I wonder what she would have made of me this morning - we've got a blocked drain and I had my arm submerged in the sewage of the septic tank trying to poke a rod into the pipe. Frankly I wasn't bothered if a neighbour saw me, and you can't do much more disgusting than that!

IMO, caring what people think is a useless exercise, since you can't know for sure what they are thinking about unless you are a mind reader. So you might as well not care!