This is nothing.
In NYC, a landlord or his representative has to go through tenant’s garbage to make sure that the recyclables are correctly sorted. If a garbage inspector finds a can or tin foil in regular garbage, then the landlord is fined $100.00. The inspectors use metal detectors.
No one has a clue how to throw out pizza boxes because of the grease stains.
In NYC people have also gotten tickets for disposing home garbage into public garbage cans on the street. Long live Big Brother.
Where I live we have two cans provided by the trash hauler: recyclable and trash. Pizza boxes are on the trash list because of the grease. And the pickup is so automated the truck driver doesn't have time to look through the trash. He just drives next to your can, the truck's arm grabs the can and flips it over into a big container on the front. About the only thing that might get him to look is if I threw out a couple cinder blocks.
My town charges for trash by the pound. We buy trash stickers that cost $1.00 for every 25 lbs. I’m pretty liberal with the weight on those.
Curbside recycling is free. I toss whatever I can into the bin. I don’t inspect them for the silly code. I flat out refuse to wash out cans and bottles. Not my problem.
Cardboard, some regular trash etc. goes in the bin, including pizza boxes. Again, I don’t care. I play their stupid game because it doesn’t cost me anything on top of my taxes like the trash stickers do.
I can give a pretty good case against curbside recycling. It’s stupid and nowhere near cost effective, but if they want to play stupid games, I’ll play stupid games.