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I recycle, because the city made it in my best interest to do so.
First, they made the standard garbage cans smaller. Then they gave us two _huge_ wheeled recycling bins, each one easily three times the size of the standard can: one is for paper, plastic, metal, and such, and you don't have to sort any of it. The city bought machines that can do most of the sorting.
The other one is for greenwaste, which includes all yard waste, fruit and vegetable waste, and even brown paper bags: anything that can be composted. The city runs its own giant compost heap.
They've done most of the heavy work for me; they'd like you to rinse stuff out, but it's not anything they dwell upon; I'll soak the occasional peanut butter jar, but that's it.
As a result of all this, I probably take my normal garbage can out to the curb every two weeks, and even then it's not really full. It's amazing how much of your trash can be recycled -- and will be recycled, if it's made easy.
The impetus for all this is a California law that made it mandatory that municipalities divert half their trash flow into recyclables. Actually, that was the first thing; the second thing was that our county, and many others, doesn't want to have to buy new landfill space in the near future. It's expensive, and it's almost impossible politically to start a new landfill. The neighbors always rise up in arms.
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