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.
I was forced to pay people to take my recycling, which I never had any of because I take it to the recycling center and get around 35-40 cents a pound.
A similar thing happened to my parents, living in a Milwaukee suburb. They have a well drilled and use well water.
The city decided that this is a health hazard and is forcing everyone to be on well water. Not only do they tear up your yard to drop the pipes, you also have to pay a contractor to hook up the water main to your house. Non-compliance results in a fine. A FINE?! For using your own well water...
With some regard, there are areas of the US that do this. The city i live in charges extra for more than 1 trash can and really limits what is picked up, while a neighboring city has tags that go on trash bags (charged by the bag). Then again, another neighboring city does neither and will pick up pretty much whatever you put on the curb. For a nationalized system there'd have to be consistent infrastructure and federal funding...and there's really no push for either. Rather, the current method is to incentivize the public to recycle on their own through bottle deposits (though most states don't do this) and/or education.
what.
Who's charging you? Local government?
It's funny, the waste management people in our town are still unionised out the wazoo, and they're in deep with the labor party so they keep going on strike to put pressure on the incumbent greens. It's really not a good advertisement for the labor movement.
We have no limits on what we put out for blue (recyclables) bin or green (organic) bin waste (collected weekly), and since we've switched to clear garbage bags, the only limit on non-recyclable garbage (collected bi-weekly) is that you have a limit of four non-transparent shopping bags within your bagged garbage.
We reached an 81% diversion (from landfill) rate in 2013.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/08/15/markham_shines_as...
I have to pay extra to recycle, which I do not think is correct.
Should be more like some areas in Germany where you pay for the amount of trash you have(weight), the more you throw away the more you pay -> encourages recycling!
I also work for a brewery and it is sad that none will re-use bottles in the united states, all beer goes into brand new bottles :(