Just fyi, this was completely intentional[1]. There was a big concern about increasing plastic use in the 1990s. So, the plastics producers started producing ads and adding the recycling symbol to plastics. The consumer assumed they were doing "good" and left it for the municipalities and recyclers to figure out or to just dump in the landfill. A lot of plastics can be shredded up and reused to some degree but not recycled in the truest sense. I honestly think we need to be recycling only aluminum and cardboard (from the curb). We also need to start taxing all the excessive plastic packaging and single use mindset. As long as convenience is so cheap, we'll never consider alternativess.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...