Also, in bigger cities(Oslo in my case), even if you throw empties in public trash cans, they get fished out by various types of poor people who walk around all day collecting them. Though I tend to leave them next to the trashcan as long as it's not too windy, just as a nice gesture to the less fortunate. Or, often you'll see one of them as you finish your drink and you just hand them the bottle. Of course, I'd prefer a society where people didn't need to do this to get their next fix or meal or whatever it is, but it is sort of neat that utrash sorting can just naturally emerge in a society once the trash is imbued with monetary value.

One wonders why we don't do this with larger categories of garbage that needs to be sorted. I suppose bottles and cans are fairly easy to semi-automate given their fairly standardised shapes. But that just feels like an implementation detail.