"American" is not one place. Many, many cities have policies just as you described - pay by usage. Many cities have free recycling. It is going to be differe

"American" is not one place. Many, many cities have policies just as you described - pay by usage. Many cities have free recycling. It is going to be different for every single city/town. My garbage is picked up by a private company unfortunately. That means my landlord only pays them to pick up garbage, not recycling. The town picks up recycling for individual households for free but my complex has private dumpsters. I know people who can only put their garbage out in special bags and they have to pay the company or city for the bags, so they pay per bag of garbage.