My village is an enclave of Fort Worth, and it doesn't recycle but the city of Fort Worth does. I have a copy of my ex's water bill with me in the pickup and every week or two I take my glass, plastic, and metal to the FW trash and recycling center near us. Most FW city residents get bins to put at the curb with commingled recyclables, but they also have the option to take it to this place, along with bulky waste. You can also drop off unwanted electronics there.

None of these programs recycles fibre from clothing or furniture, etc, so a big opportunity is missed there. I take aluminum cans to the village city hall; our park department recycles them for funding. And the village has a paper recycler that also accepts corrugated cardboard. Corrugated cardboard is actually a profitable material to recycle. Many years ago when I was first looking at it for a volunteer program the rate was $400 a ton. I'm sure it has gone up.

Most grocery stores here (Texas, anyway) have contracts with recycling companies to pick up the cardboard, but I think anything else discarded (food spoiled in containers goes straight in the trash to the dump. Most stores still offer flimsy plastic grocery bags, but even the discount places are now selling cloth reusable bags. I've had some since the early 1990s that are still going strong. When I shop at Sam's Club (the Walmart warehouse) I always use one of their discarded boxes that are placed up fromt for groceries to be packed in. If cardboard isn't carted out the door by customers then it goes in the recycle bin out back.

Here at the house vegetable/fruit waste goes in the compost. Meat waste still goes in the trash (it is a nuisance with my dogs or wild animals otherwise). I usually have a very small amount of trash each week.

SRS