Meerkat,
We figured out that recycling went the way of the dicky bird a few years ago. We quit using blue bin pick up out at the road due to critters, wind and the garbage guys scattering crap all over the road and ditches.
When we started taking our trash straight to the dump instead, we found out that they didn't take glass in recycling. The blue bin glass was being taken to a big dump out of the public's line of site and mind. At first they kept paper and plastic separated in the recycling bins, then they started telling us not to bother, the recycling plants have people to sort it later. Yeh, right,
We realized recycling is just another virtue signaling scam. We try to buy as little packaging as possible. We burn as much stuff as we can and since we are on a farm, we have zero kitchen waste. We take about one small personal bag of garbage to the dump every two months.
We also take a contractor bag of garbage filled by us picking it up out of ditches, and now that the national parks have locked their garbage cans up due to covid, we carry a trash bag and pokey picking sticks with us on our hikes to help clean up after the 'nature lovers'.
We do what we can, but it isn't enough.