What gets me about public recycling communications/outreach/programs is that they always emphasize "recycle more" and never "recycle carefully". Really it should be "First, don't put junk in the recycling (do no harm). Second, if you have clean appropriate objects, put them in the recycling."
In fancy office buildings and residential buildings around NYC I've seen inappropriate junk in the recycling all the time, practically every time I put in my recycling. Plastic wraps and plastic milk cartons in the paper. Paper and food in the bottles/cans. It's always unclear about toys and household plastic objects that very likely have additives that make them not recyclable. Nobody ever emphasizes recycling correctly, but in any documentary where they look inside recycling centers you see them dealing with machines clogged with inappropriate materials, huge bales of negative-value mixed materials, etc. This is the stuff that was getting secretly shipped to Asia for dubious handling because it was too low-value for actual processing/usage in the US.
I don't blame oil companies, or manufacturers, really everyone has been in on this collective delusion: teachers, politicians, community organizers, everyone I see is all about more recycling, recycling good. While actually we've been trashing the recycling systems/processes for decades, while cheering it on. And I'm some weird nerd engineer type who cares if thing work or not.
I worked in a wework building for a while, there they made a huuuuge fuss about the separated recycling bin. We had to be super careful about what we put in which bins.
My desk was near a kitchen area. Every day, without fail, the cleaner would come and empty the separate bins into one large bin when taking out the trash.
In fancy office buildings and residential buildings around NYC I've seen inappropriate junk in the recycling all the time, practically every time I put in my recycling. Plastic wraps and plastic milk cartons in the paper. Paper and food in the bottles/cans. It's always unclear about toys and household plastic objects that very likely have additives that make them not recyclable. Nobody ever emphasizes recycling correctly, but in any documentary where they look inside recycling centers you see them dealing with machines clogged with inappropriate materials, huge bales of negative-value mixed materials, etc. This is the stuff that was getting secretly shipped to Asia for dubious handling because it was too low-value for actual processing/usage in the US.
I don't blame oil companies, or manufacturers, really everyone has been in on this collective delusion: teachers, politicians, community organizers, everyone I see is all about more recycling, recycling good. While actually we've been trashing the recycling systems/processes for decades, while cheering it on. And I'm some weird nerd engineer type who cares if thing work or not.