From an excellent article by Mike Munger:

My first experience with the recycling debate was in 2008, when I was asked to keynote a conference in Freemantle, Australia. The conference, called “Australia Recycles!,” was a gathering of recycling professionals and equipment vendors from around the Pacific rim…

I focused on glass, especially the kind of green glass used for wine bottles. Glass is heavy and inert. That means it’s expensive to cart around and handle, in addition to the problems of breaking and cutting workers. Glass is harmless in a landfill and breaks down into something very like the sand it came from….

As I was going through my presentation, I was surprised at the reaction of the audience of the conference. They weren’t angry; they were bored. When I finished, a man stood up and gave what seemed to be the response of the entire audience, given their nods and smiles: “Look, professor, we all know this. Everyone knows that there are problems with green glass. We all understand that there is no market for cullet. But it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to get people in the habit of recycling, because it’s the right thing to do.”