That just moves the cost of recycling to the publicThe public has an interest in a clean desert, since the desert surrounding the city was the primary source of recreation for the people living there.
It is also essentially a regressive tax since the wealthy consume/dispose of more goods
Trash fees were based on the assessed value of your home, so the wealthy paid more in trash fees than the poor.
Also most areas don't have a single exclusive trash service (monopoly).
As noted in the original comment, there were multiple trash companies in this city. All had to adhere to the same rules.
single stream recycling in America, on average, is a complete failure
It wasn't single stream. There were four bins. One each for garbage, glass, metals, and plastics.
I'd either expect such a trash/recycling service (as you describe) to be quite expensive or actually recycle very little of relative to what could be recycled.
I rented my house, so I couldn't tell you if it was expensive, or not. But as I stated above, the price was based on the value of the home. I doubt anyone ever changed their mind about buying a house because the cost of trash disposal in City A was $10/month more than in City B.
If the manufacture's & end consumers of goods were forced to confront the cost of disposal at the time of purchase it would create a large incentive for companies to make products with less waste and products that are easier to recycle.
I agree. But that's not the reality today. We may get there 50 years from now, but people don't want to live surrounded by 50 years of garbage in order to fulfill a social theory.
The goal isn't to just to recycle everything that currently can be recycled but to make everything easy to recycle.
Which was exactly what this did: Make it easy for people to recycle everything that could be recycled.