Recycling started off as the third R and last resort, the first two were Reduce and Reuse. Those were not compatible with an economy based on consumerism and growth, so Recycling became the focus, creating an industry to pick through the few things that could be recycled and trashing the rest, and encouraging the public to buy more because it’s not a problem as long as you participate.
And if you don’t participate, all the problems are your fault. Not the companies making the stuff, they’re just doing what you want.
I think it’s even worse. They didn’t tell us what was and wasn’t recyclable. They used symbols very similar to the recycling logo to stamp on various types of plastics to classify them. Most of the types used are one time use, they never were meant to imply recycling, that’s just the symbol appearance.