I was living in Garland Maine just outside of Dexter Maine (once home to the shoe company of the same name) and we would BRING our separated items and then throw them into the shipping bins that held that certain recyclable . Their was also a dumpster for everything else that was not cash friendly to go to a landfill . It worked well enough that we were able to hire two people to monitor the proceedings on the weekends and the town made a profit by selling at the right time for however the markets went . This was small scale mind you but it worked . The best way to address the situation is go back to older ways of packaging ....I still seek out say...milk in paper/wax half gallons or if available have a milk man deliver in glass...I am not a tree hugger by any chance but just stating that I have seen it work on a small scale . Once the hacks and thieves get their hands on it I expect it to be corrupted and pillaged..The only way to fix that is jail the politicians and strip what wealth which we can prove they obtained...very simple if all the participants weren’t all sucking from the same teat as it currently is .
Why waste our natural resources on using the old packaging?
There is a reason they aren’t used anymore, the old ways are wasteful.
Your town was making a profit on the backs of your, and your neighbors’, labor. And you were probably each working for pennies an hour to boot.
Recycling home garbage, as presently structured, is a scam that is only made possible by the need to virtue signal.