The London Green Party tells us that it’s impossible to recycle everything correctly:

It is "impossible" to recycle household rubbish in London because of a "postcode lottery", the Green Party has said.

The capital's 32 borough councils were asked for their policies on recycling seven items, including a plastic bucket, crisp packet, ballpoint pen and a bicycle tyre.

None could recycle all seven items.

Our own attitude to such things is that if it’s impossible to do we should stop trying to do it.

More specifically here with recycling the aim is to reduce the use of resources. We’re cool with that, not just fine in fact but actively in favour. Using fewer resources to gain output makes us richer, for of course that means that we can then go on to produce more with those unused resources.

This does though mean all resources. Recycling is more expensive than holes in the ground or large furnaces. Therefore recycling - at this level at least, what does not consume more resources ends up not as recycling but as scrap - uses more resources. Given that our aim is to reduce resource use we should therefore be using the holes and the incinerators more.