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
I think I already agreed with the article, except in a very circumscribed set of circumstances in which there is an economic benefit (and which, by and large don't apply anywhere in the US, except *possibly* the north-east corridor and the LA basin).
The one thing that's worth separating from your trash to recycle is alumnium: but unless they're giving you a discount on trash hauling, keep it yourself, and sell it at a paying recycling center.
After posting that, I recalled a child-hood memory: we used to save aluminum, and collect scrap metal--aluminum and copper--on walks round the small town I grew up in (and the one across the river, and surrounding countryside). It felt virtuous (the town had less litter thanks to our family) and paid, not enough to make it really worthwhile, but enough to put in a bias in favor of the extra exercise one got on walks by carrying bag and occasionally bending to pick up an errant bit of metal.