Why are some countries so much more succesful in resycling waste products?

In order to answer this question,let's think:) What countries are succesful? They are undoubtly Japan, The Uk, Germany, France and the Usa. Why this countries need to resycle? This question is easy with Japan and the Uk, because this countries are situated on the Islands so it's cheaper for them to resycle but not to dump waste(they just don't have enough space). But that is not the only point. Recycling means that you can reuse product or to make some PROFIT from it.
For example, you can either dump the waste in the landfill OR you can recycle it and by this to decrease the usage of natural resourses and to gain additional supply of energy? Some countries like Russia and Ukraine prefer to dump  wastes in the ladnfill because it's cheaper just to put waste somewhere and to have the same energy by burning coal. So why do some countries need to be succesfull in recycling waste products? Because they DO NOT have enough resourses to use them so unefficently.