I believe it's illegal *not* to recycle here.
I have two big orange containers and we seperate all our paper/plastic/glass/aluminum. We have tons and tons of recycling every week with all the Lean Cuisines we eat.
And when it comes to 'special pickup', things like couches and stuff, we never have to call and schedule or know what day to put it out. Anything we put outside for pickup doesn't last two hours, someone finds it and takes it. I even put notes on them. When I got a new office chair, I put my old one out with a note, "I've barely been used but I'm not very comfortable". It was gone within a half hour. Our old couch lasted two hours.
Oh and there's also this woman who walks around on recycle day, picking the cans for deposit out of people's bins.