Varies widely across country and the type of thing you're recycling. People are so extreme with recycling, it's either "recycle everything!" or "it's a scam, just chuck it all in the garbage"

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adrianN 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I’m relatively sure that electronics are not recycled properly anywhere. At best some of the metals are extracted (hopefully not by mixing the ashes with mercury).

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vasco 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It varies very widely indeed. In some countries it isn't a scam because it gets burned like Denmark but other than that majority of recycling just means shipping it to a landfill in a poor country that they promise to recycle.

	▲	chpatrick 27 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		In Hungary it gets sorted out locally. We also recently implemented a bottle return system that (although it's annoying) produces clean stacks of PET, aluminium and glass, all of which are recyclable.
	▲	eru an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Well, it depends a lot on material. Metals, especially aluminum, get widely recycled because it actually makes financial sense. Plastics, well, you are probably better off burning them for electricity.
	▲	nandomrumber an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> because it gets burned I wouldn’t really call that recycling.