Comment Re:The problem is that landfills are too cheap (Score 2) 371
This might've been insightful if you'd removed "Americans". I'm in a canadian middle-income neighbourhood, and even here we have households who never put out a recycle bin. We have 3 programs here: rigid plastics & metal, paper & cardboard, and compost. It is paid for by taxes, and if it wasn't then many more would opt out. Even the bins are given out for free by the city. Thankfully most people realize that when our city's current dump fills up, it will cost far more to start shipping to the next available site, so diversion is a high priority.
The only non-recycling person I've ever spoken to about it said that she doesn't bother because sorting is too complex - so in my experience the kind of people who don't recycle are mainly just stupid, or have zero sense of community. And I only spoke to her because she had left a TV sitting on her curb for a month, it boggled her mind that such things can't be thrown out in the trash anymore.