From a realistic POV, yes, make people put plastic in a “landfill” bin, from a psych POV, make them do busywork so we feel better about ourselves.
https://liveworkgermany.com/2017/05/how-does-the-german-pfan...
I wonder hoy effective this Pfand system is against littering. When I go to germany for a trip with the family I always find the streets clean, and I bet this is not because the germans clean streets lot, but as a consequence they don't litter instead.
Which is terrible. They could be putting that effort into actually doing something that helps. Or at least have their time back.
You can apply backpressure to the stream by buying things not wrapped in plastic in the first place. It’ll take some time for the signal to have an impact, but if enough people selected less-packaged goods, the market would fix the supply chain over time.
Also, if you pick items with less packaging up-front, then you don’t need to do as much work sorting waste on the back end!
Not only was this supposed to be sorted between paper/plastic/glass/metal, but also between different types of plastic? That was never going to happen on an individual basis. And what about huge apartment buildings and hotels?
The only way recycling would have made sense was if it was all being sorted at the waste facility, which if it was, wouldn't have required people to sort it individually. Hence, the whole thing was a sham from the beginning.