They really ought to make a law requiring it all to be recyclable.
You can make all the laws you want, Drew, but what is the material going to be recycled INTO? Right now, China is cutting way back on scrap steel imports, and prices have fallen to next to nothing for scrap dealers on the west coast that used to fill the orders. I can still "recycle" my scrap, but I get nothing for it.
When I take my glass and aluminum to the other recycle place, I only get paid for bottles and cans that have a deposit on them. They throw out, to the dump, all the rest of the glass because there is no market for it. I don't even bother taking in steel soup cans and the like; they just go in the dumpster, too.
Same with plastic bottles: no market, just send it to the dump if it doesn't have a deposit on it.
When I take a tire off anything, I pay a disposal fee. Again, what are they supposed to use old tires for?
There's still a small payment for aluminum, probably because it takes so much electricity to refine the ore.
Keep in mind this is in environmentally over zealous Kalifornia, where you'd think EVERYTHING would be mandated as recyclable. Thinking back, eight years ago when they were picking up a recycle bin at the curb, they CHARGED customers to haul away the "recyclables". So unless more uses are found for the "recycled" material, it will continue to be stockpiled in the municipal dump, perhaps for future generations to "mine".
:2cents: