Either the citizen sorts out the trash or the trash cannot be sorted. If the trash is not sorted properly, then recycling is impossible. Seattle has a pretty sophisticated and functioning recycling program. If you do not live there, you do not understand the culture, and really should not criticize.
Here in Miami Dade County, we have a regular pickup of yard waste and garbage, and a "recycle bin" which is mostly just a boondoggle, as it is a private company that says it wants only paper, aluminum, glass and steel cans, and only some types of plastic. They say they cannot recycle the most common of all plastic, those bags. They want the bottles your cooking oil comes in, but not the caps, and they want beer cans but not tinfoil. Since the list of whet they want and do not want is extremely complicated, no one I know seems to sort it out they way they want, and I think that all of it just ends up in a landfill.
I save those plastic bags and take them to Publix Supermarkets, who claims they make park benches out of them. My Cuban girlfriend stuffed them into her luggage and sold them in Havana for a peso apiece, since in Cuba, everyone has to supply their own bag.
Global Climate Change DOES exist. Places in Miami Beach that never used to flood do so every time the Moon causes a really high tide. My house it 12 ft above sea level and is built four feet above ground.
I changed all the lights in my home, and my electric bill went down. There is no difference in the amount of light, and I do not have to replace bulbs so often.