In NL we used to have door-to-door collectors of metals, paper, vegetable matter ('schillenboer') and glass. Then it all got industrialized and a couple of large companies got exclusivity from the municipalities. Who now have to supply them with mandatory minimums in tonnage or face steep contractually agreed upon fines. And here we are trying hard to reduce the amount of waste. It's such a complete fuck-up. Every yard now looks like a miniature recycling center, with up to five containers in some municipalities (we only have four, but they take up a lot of space and the smell is incredible). (the categories we have are 'remainder','plastic','vegetable/green','paper', and they are emptied irregularly and have a strange mix of capacities, in total there is about 1000 liters of volume across those four containers, and they take up 2 square meters).