61% of the plastic waste collected for recycling in Germany is incinerated.
A lot is also exported to Asian countries where we pretend they are recycling it but they are probably not. This was in the news all over Europe back in 2019 when China stopped allowing imports of waste and all the "recycling" programs went into crisis mode. Germany now exports its waste to Malaysia instead.
But my original argument still debunks PBS's claim that sorting and free market economics is somehow the problem.
I still feel like I'm not personally at fault in my role as a consumer if I use plastic and take it to the recycling center assuming them to deal in good faith.
I live in Japan which also boasts a very high high recycling rate, but the vast majority of the plastic just gets incinerated. Here whenever it comes up in the news, they claim that since different types of waste needs to be burnt at different temperatures, it's still worth it since it makes the incineration (which is used to generate heat or electricity) more efficient.