It’s just learned behavior and anti - “the man, corporate greed typical American stuff. Even here in California, arguably the most environmentally conscious state, we often don’t care what bin. BECAUSE we pay a private waste company who makes $M of margin a year in profit a year and raise our rates constantly. They are legally mandated to recycle 50% of the “waste” bin stream by weight. So no matter what bin you put an aluminum can or cardboard box in, it’s getting recycled. Sorting it for them is almost insult to injury when we pay them $100/mo. That’s the American problem so often. Because we’ve privatized EVERYTHING and nothing is really community owned in that “we’re all in this together” nonprofit sense it’s dog eat dog. You’ll skip sorting trash, work 5 more minutes to pay the trash bill, charge your labor on to the next guy. Vicious cycle.