Good post Frankly. I love talking about garbage/recycling, I love recovering garbage/recycling and (re)using it. Sometimes I'd like to do it all day. Not even garbage, but foraging in general. I love learning about edible wild plants and mushrooms. Scavengers and
parasites generally get a bad or negative image attached to them. I think they are awesome and play an integral role in the grand scheme of things, and could do to be emulated a bit.
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Though I agree with the general point about trash volumes. I see my neighbors putting out a wheelie bin or two every week, while I average about half a small trash can every two weeks - and I pay the same as they do :-(
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Every municipality deals with garbage collection differently and sometimes it's ingrained enough for it to be really difficult to change. My city began using special bags in the mid 90s for garbage collection to great success. They are sold at local stores where garbage bags are sold, and are priced to cover the cost of collection. The more waste you produce, the more bags you must buy and the more you'll recycle or reuse - this (in theory) eliminates that frustration you encounter by having to pay the same as your highly wasteful neighbors. (there are always people who are going to complain about having to pay for ANYTHING). The grand hope is that people will eventually steer away from buying things with excessive packaging, or packaging at all.
I actually work for public works in my city now, and I'm in a reasonably good position to propose ideas related to garbage collection, and I'm seeing what we can do about a transfer station swap shop to create a space for perfectly good items to be diverted from the landfill, creating a centralized repository of curb loot.
Google transfer station swap shop - it's awesome.