Recycling will only work, and is only useful, when there is an economic incentive. (Or intense social pressure of the sort that can exist in Japan, but probably not even in small towns here.)
If one lives in a densely populated area, where waste removal is a muncipal service, where landfill space at reasonable cost is very far away, it makes economic sense to subsidize recycling, so long as the cost the municipality is reduced. Part of the savings should be passed on to residents who recycle as an incentive. (No need for the recycling police.)
In places where waste removal is privately contracted, if recycling is cheaper, the private companies can offer discounts to recyclers.
I've always been mystified by people who think that somehow resources are wasted by being put in landfills. No so: if the price of resources commonly put into landfills rises enough, yesterday's landfills will become tomorrow's mines. (The way some people behave, you'd think the stuff was being rocketed to the sun.)
Japanese bureaucrats sit around in their tower building offices everyday thinking of ridiculous new ways to justify their existence ...Police nanny state indeed ...
I recommend everyone to John Tierney's work in The New York Times Magazine on recycling. Far from a lefist approach...Tierney said recycling was an economic waste of time and money.
I believe him...but in my upbringing, it was always, "waste not, want not."
http://www.williams.edu/HistSci/curriculum/101/garbage.html
Recycling Is Garbage
Rinsing out tuna cans and tying up newspapers may make you feel virtuous, but recycling could be America's most wasteful activity.
more at above link