What you're seeing isn't consumers failing to recycle, it is councils being unable to fund the infrastructure required for recycling, and the councils are votin

What you're seeing isn't consumers failing to recycle, it is councils being unable to fund the infrastructure required for recycling, and the councils are voting with their comparatively empty wallets. So even when you are a good little consumer and put it in the recycling bin, not all councils can afford to recycle it properly, because it is a difficult and costly problem to solve at scale. So Coca-cola reaps all the benefits, while councils pay for all the cleanup. Being pragmatic here though, whoever is ultimately at fault doesn't matter, because the outcome is clear: councils are poorer, coca-cola is richer, and the earth is full of plastic. So do we wait for the sudden and unprecedented cooperation of consumers across the globe, or do we regulate plastic? As for how to regulate, I would suggest that plastic recycling is paid for by the companies that produce the plastic, perhaps through levies per-kg of produced plastic that ultimately make it more costly to use than more environmentally friendly materials. This would help councils/countries afford recycling infrastructure for plastic that makes enough sense, and it would naturally be more economical to use less plastic. We need a way to set a "Tradeoff cost" at a community level, similar to how there are taxes on fuels for cars.