Depends how you define "cost productive". Cheaper on a cash basis, but that ignores the (not insignificant) externalities of doing that, such as landfill remedi

Depends how you define "cost productive". Cheaper on a cash basis, but that ignores the (not insignificant) externalities of doing that, such as landfill remediation down the road, and increased cost of transporting other trash to more distant landfill sites. It's easy to say recycling should "pay for itself" but if you're going to do that, you need to consider the entire economic picture, not just how much value is generated from the recovered goods. There's also landfill savings, protection of the environment, reduced usage of energy (both in disposal and generation of new materials), etc. Given all of those, it can be entirely rational for a government to subsidize recycling heavily, because the overall impact is still "cost effective."