In Anderson County TN I have curbside pickup. The cost is tacked on as part of the water bill. It's a one-bin system that accepts plastics (from food packaging only), metals and glass. I'm not sure what happens to it after it's picked up.
In the house we don't throw away paper, I just toss it in the woodstove. We don't take the newspaper so the volume isn't bad, mostly old mail. Toward the end of the summer the firebox is pretty full and yields a big, slow fire for about an hour and a half.
Sometimes if I see some lying around, I'll pick up old pallets, esp. from a local paint shop where the management says I can have all I can carry; they're an odd size that nobody else wants. I bring them home and cut them up, sometimes into kindling and sometimes into projects. The stringers are usually pine but the boards are often hardwood, usually poplar but sometimes oak and rarely maple (!?). That gets saved for projects.
Motor oil goes to the city oil barrel for recycling. Kitchen grease goes into the woodstove. Lawn clippings get mulched but leaves go to the curb; the city collects and mulches them in a huge heap on the edge of town.
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