I'm not actually claiming that all mixing is bad, but the general "just dump it all into one bin" style of appeal to consumers' convenience is the problem. Alon

I'm not actually claiming that all mixing is bad, but the general "just dump it all into one bin" style of appeal to consumers' convenience is the problem. Along with the mixing, we saw widespread advocacy that people just recycle thoughtlessly. Encouraging such carelessness gives a false impression about the whole system, encourages ignorance… It's one thing for single-stream to be feasible in terms of a mix of clean paper, plastic containers, and metal. It's another thing to discourage consumer thoughtfulness and end up with all manner of plastics, strange mixes of rules in different municipalities, and tons of problematic contamination — all of which could have been avoided if we didn't aim to make recycling a mindless activity. Obviously the real problem is the externalizing of the whole waste cost from the manufacturers. If we could make all manufacturers pay for all the recycling and environmental costs, they'd change their products to be more recyclable and less wasteful.