That's funny because over here in Australia it looks to be progressing well?
For us it's a yellow bin for recycling
Visy – what happens to your household recycling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXSmINKUOxg
Most Australian states have a 10c refund when you return a can or bottle:
Do you have this?
You can even then directly donate it to a charity of your choice: https://www.containersforchange.com.au/qld/donate-your-refund
On top of this if you use https://oceanhero.today/ for searching the money they make from ads goes towards paying people in poor countries to collect plastic
Australia wide we're slowly phasing out single use plastics:
https://www.marineconservation.org.au/which-australian-states-are-banning-single-use-plastics/
That's already reducing the amount of plastic by millions of tons
There's also smaller things like:
Our new cards are made from 100% recycled plastic*, with 64% collected from coastal communities by Parley for the Oceansâ„¢.
https://www.bankaust.com.au/card
Recycling centers try and then often give up and just landfill plastic
Sounds like defeatist mentality to me, your councils/states should be doing better