This. Where I used to live the only scrap yard would only accept nonferrous metals and the towns would charge for scrap metal. Washing machines on the side of the road was a routine sight, or it was until a new scrap yard that would accept just about anything metal opened up.

edit: I'm struggling to wrap my mind around why this is getting down-voted. I'm providing a real world example of the behavior the person I'm replying to described. I'm not endorsing dumping things on the side of the road. Do people seriously not believe that above a certain price point people will illegally dump their trash and risk the fine?

I mean with scrap metal or whatever it's one thing, but your weekly trash? Unless the cost is exorbitant people are probably just going to pay to have the bags for their trash. Like I think in Japan they were about $5; I'm not going to start trucking my fish bones to the local stream to save five bucks.

It all really depends on how much painpoint there is regarding refuse/recycling.

The more rules, fines, restrictions the state implements, the less people will comply. And lack of compliance means stuff is thrown away in others' yards, dumped on the commons, or otherwise hidden to the nature of the trash.

Because of onerousness with local ordnances with regarding paint, many people just end up hiding the containers in dog food bags. I've seen quite a few of those already in the local dumpster.

I see this a lot across British Columbia Lower Mainland, but rather with old mattresses and soft furniture. It's relatively expensive to recycle those, so people just dump them in bushes and even on random people's front yards.