[vinbreau]

Grew up in a rural area. 45 minute drive to nearest recycling center. My father would collect an entire truck load of bagged recyclables and bring it there. He would walk away with maybe 5$ if he was lucky.

5$ to bring 15 bags 45 minutes away... I don't see an incentive here for people who live in rural areas, which is quite a lot of people.

[Johnny555]

I took an entire truck load of household trash (cleaned out a house after tenants moved out), and it cost me $40 to dump it at the trash transfer station.

Landfill space isn't free, so by diverting trash to recycling, your dad saved more than $5.

[blablabla123]

Germany: 45 second Walk down the stairs for separate Paper, Glass, plastic/foil and bio waste bins - Even in rural areas sometimes to this extend.

[Wohlf]

Rural and suburban means very different things in Europe than it does in the Americas, often orders of magnitude more distance.

[thx11389793]

Not to mention that there are often different bins for different color glass (have seen them in public areas, not sure if this happens for residential as well). And iirc you may get yelled at for doing it wrong