Recycling. What recycling?

Cities that manage their own trash collections and get their citizens to pay via their property taxes or utility bills apparently may not be doing so well these days, according to CNN. When Lynn Heinisch and her neighbors in Atlanta's Lake Claire neighborhood take their recycling to the curb for pickup each Thursday, they cross their fingers and hope for the best. Accusing city collectors of unreliable pickups, Heinisch and the others have resorted to stockpiling recyclable materials in their garages.

"It's frustrating," Heinisch said. "People are trying to recycle, and it's not easy. I wish it was easy to do what we all feel strongly about." When she has to, Heinisch drives her recycling 4 miles to a dropoff center in the town of Decatur.

The recession has trashed the nation's booming recycling industry in just a few months, and cities are straining to keep their programs alive. Demand for commodities such as cardboard, paper and glass has taken a nose dive, and prices for those materials have gone south since last fall. In August, a recycler in Georgia could expect to receive about $160 a ton for curbside recyclables. Now the average is about $37 a ton.