If we want people to be serious about recycling, having a policy of 5-10 cents for returning cans and bottles is likely to be a more effective tools than curbside recycling.
He points out that beverage companies are the bootleggers in the bootleggers-and-baptists coalition in favor of curbside recycling, because communities often use curbside recycling does not raise the cost of distributing beverages in bottles. For economics teachers, this is a three-fer: the concept of externality (how large is the externality created by putting bottles into garbage?), the use of prices to incent behavior, and public choice theory.