Despite nearly 30 years of active recycling in the USA, 96 percent of plastic still goes into landfills. Two-thirds of waste paper still gets thrown away, and Mexico actually recycles more glass per capita than the U.S. does.
2. In India, concern for resources is a matter of survival for thousands who make their living from recycling and the complex economy which has grown up around it. This includes industrial recycling plants, the recycling shops that supply them and the "rag-pickers", the street children who spend their days collecting other people's rubbish for the recycling shops. Paper, plastics, glass and textiles are re-processed leaving virtually no "real" rubbish.