The part about plastics being useless to recycle actually makes a lot of sense, if you live in a place where trash is incinerated for electricity or heat, and you have oil-powered electricity. Making virgin plastic from the oil you saved by burning plastic trash in its stead is better&#x2F;cheaper&#x2F;more energy fficient than recycling the plastic trash.<p>Aluminium is always extremely cost-effective to recycle, because making aluminium from bauxite requires enormous amounts of electricity, but re-smelting aluminium containers is cheap.<p>I&#x27;m surprised that glass was not cost-effective to recycle according to the article. I thought that since it&#x27;s generally easy to sort and re-smelt, it&#x27;s be all good. But maybe the raw materials are so cheap that it outweighs the cost of recycling?