My city currently issues 2, 96 gallon (363 liter) containers to each household, with an option to lease additional. One is for trash, picked up weekly and the other is recyclables, picked up bi-weekly. No Extra charges for these pickups.
The recyclables are unsorted. Glass is prohibited in the recycle and while it can be dropped off at recycle centers, people generally put it in the trash.
The trash can be anything that fits in the bin and isn't hazardous, although if not visible, hazardous items are often disposed of in the trash. We do have a drop off location for hazardous liquids, petroleum products and chemicals at no cost.
Yard waste can go into the trash bin or can be in purchased paper yard bags. There is a 6 week period spring and summer where unlimited yard waste is picked up at no cost, The rest of the time, 2 dollar tags must be purchased and placed on each bag or they will not collect. My lawn produces roughly 8 bags of clippings a week and I generally mulch to avoid those charges. The yard waste is
generally picked up by the same truck as the trash and goes to the landfill and not a composting site.
After storms that leave massive amounts of tree damage (we've had 3 last year) drop off sites are opened at several city park. This debris is chipped and used/sold for mulch.
Each spring we have neighborhood cleanups where people can bring large items and miscellaneous trash to be disposed of. These are generally sited in a school parking lot and the location changes to a different neighborhood each week. Other times of the year large items can be scheduled for pick up for a fee or as we often do, unwanted items are placed on then curb/verge with a free sign and is generally picked up rather quickly. We do the same with metal items as there are scrappers who cruise neighborhoods for these items. There is also many independent haulers who will load and haul away unwanted items, my stepson did this for awhile.
Overall, I give my city a low grade for recycling. We could do much better however recycling isn't seen as profitable enough to be a priority and is mostly a feel good thing so people can say they do their part to save the planet.
A few years back I found Precious Plastic's YouTube channel and have followed ever since. They have developed processes and machinery for recycling plastics. Everything is open sourced and plans are available for all of the machinery. It is geared towards small business setups and has enabled many recycling companies in developing nations and all over the world, at relatively low startup expense.
Although I couldn't afford to build the equipment, I've wanted to use recycled plastic for razor scales, ideally using molds to replicate the fancy scales. I have used a toaster oven and an inexpensive tabletop shop press to make small sheets that could be cut into scales. I was never happy with the lack of control over how the colors mix, I want to try making my best imitation of tortoise shell and I'll have to change my methods some to accomplish that.
I have bins and bins of pp and hdpe plastic (the 2 lowest temp melting points) that I've run through a paper shredder and are waiting to become scales. If only I had more motivation.
There is a
thread on SRP I started a few years ago about my recycled scales.