Is recycling a pain?

Well, it depends were you live, I would say.
In some cities, and sometimes in part of some cities, you not only can recycle but have to.
In my neighborhood, you definitely don't have to. But you can. Recycling is always possible.
First, you can reuse, which is a very good way to decrease the amount of garbage your household produces.
Plastic bags usually make very good trash bags, for smaller trash cans such as your bathroom ones. And so you don't have to buy special small trash bags. Which in return makes you save a bit of money.
If you happen to shop at Whole Foods, you can even save a tiny little bit by bringing your own reusable bags: they take a few cents of your bill for each bag you bring instead of using theirs.
I use the brown paper bags as recycling bins: I have one in my kitchen were I put all of the things that I want to recycle. Once it is full, the bag goes in the garage were we have several plastic bins were we separate glass, cans, papers, plastic... And then when all that is full (when I say full I mean overflowing onto the garage floor), we (when I say we I mean my husband) take all that to the closest recycling center. It takes about 20 minutes per month, I would say.
And doing that your trash can does not fill as quickly and you don't have to take the trash out as often :)
We are quite lazy, honestly, and we manage to do that. I'm sure you could too!