A major issue with the recycling system is that most of the items recycled (with or without the special recycling arrow symbol) end up returned in the landfill or as other waste. Despite this, many people do not realize this and continue to recycle and assume that it is something that is actually environmentally beneficial. Despite this, it is not necessarily the person’s fault, as many items that are not realistically recyclable are advertised as recyclable– which is incredibly wasteful and misleading. But even despite this, there are very few rules protecting the concept of recycling, as very few items are currently and realistically recyclable. Whether this is more accountable for the government for poorly enforcing this program and developing it fully or whether it is the producer’s fault of improperly labelling their items as in real life, it is difficult to say considering how easy it is to legally do this– as there is minimal federal legislature about this and about the specificities of the recycling program (some states do have laws on this, but not all). This combined with the lack of widespread consumer knowledge (or lack of education on this topic) makes it very difficult to emphasize how wasteful recycling actually is to many people, which reinforces this cycle of waste. Rather than using something and having it continuously remade or recycled into something new, the recycling front provides a face for redirection of waste without a guilty conscience (or any conscience, as many people are unaware of this). This also allows many more plastics and other wasteful things that can be “recycled” (but not in real life) to become much more socially acceptable, since many people believe that it may be able to be remade into something new after single use, even if most times this will not actually occur. But, it is also important to actually recycle things that will be recycled into something else, as some things are actually able to be recycled as many perceive. It is also very important to highlight the “reduce” portion of “reduce, reuse, recycle”, because reducing our waste and our consumption of single-use items (not only plastic) will be the main driver in reducing our waste issue, both within the recycling business and the general landfill and waste business.