The Taipei system wouldn't work in Calgary due to density issues, but some variation of it would be interesting.
Here, there is no automated pickup, you have to go meet the garbage trucks. They come through most neighborhoods three times a day. Around my place that's about 17:00, again around 19:30, and then again at 22:00. They announce their arrival by playing
Fur Elise.
You need to be waiting to meet them with your garbage and pre-sorted recycling. The city encourages people to recycle by allowing an unlimited amount of recycling to be dropped off, so long as it's sorted and cleaned: cardboard, glass, plastic, metal, and recycling.
'Garbage' on the other hand, is not limited per se, but the garbage trucks will
only accept garbage that is in officially-licensed and really tremendously expensive bags. They cost about $0.50 CAD for a kitchen-sized bag and $1.00 to $1.75 each for larger bags and nothing gets close to the size of the green 'Hefty-sac.'
Due to density, this 'garbage-never-touches-the-ground' system wouldn't work in Calgary, but a fee-structure where recycling is encouraged by increasing the cost of throwing items out instead of recycling them would be something really worth exploring.
Some videos about Taiwan's garbage-collection:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-12242914
https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-...sal-1463519134 (Article is behind a paywall, but the video isn't).