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The biggest issue seems to be around a lake of thinking. Recycling used plastics into more plastic is certainly energetically infeasible, and letting plastics escape to contaminate the environment is also unacceptable. However plastic can be recycled, or perhaps reused, into other things, notably as a partial replacement for aggregate in concrete. This process is low energy, doesn't require sorting the plastic, and actually enhances the thermal and noise insulation properties of the concrete, whilst also reducing it's overall weight. There are undoubtedly other things a stable, non-biodegradable, waterproof and hardwearing substance could be used for given some though.

Recycling rates are low, but I wouldn't quite call it a myth. There's a lot of materials that get lumped together as 'plastic', that each have to be handled differently.

Some are relatively non-toxic and easily recycled. More can be, but aren't profitable without incentives. Some are very toxic, and recycling those are difficult. Then there's a lot of rarer types that make it hard to collect and sort. There's also mixed materials, where it's hard to separate the plastic to recycle.

Generally everyone should be minimizing plastics, but check how they're handled locally so you know what's recylable.

Convincing detail here.

The priority is to keep used plastic out of the environment, which generally means out of waterways.

Right now it looks like paper and metal recycling is still good as far as I can read in two minutes. If someone has a correction let me know.

The price stuff can change through taxation that makes new plastic more expensive than recycled plastic.

As we all know, taxation is super popular and has never been controversial, ever.

At the very least flaskepant has worked great for like a century here in Norway. Always kind of surprising when other countries don't have it.

These guys are recycling, but I'm not sure it's the recycling most of us have in mind. Toxic tofu (YouTube)

Really annoyed to have believed in plastic recycling even into my thirties. Being an idiot is such a burden sometimes.