We have no recycling. Garbage is $37/mo. which is ridiculously expensive. We usually only have one kitchen bag of garbage and let the elderly neighbor use ours, too.
Until about 2-3 years ago, we had the same problem. One small recyclable blue container, one medium brown container
and one medium regular garbage container for about $40 per month. Any more cans was out outrageous.
So we started an email neighborhood garbage watch program for our cul de sac.
We took the garbage from two widows so they would not be charged and divided it up.
If our brown or blue containers were not full, we let the other neighbors know.
Those garbage company owners sold out. The current owners push the free recycle and compostable containers and do charge a lot for the regular container. It works for most of us.