If all 8 billion people on the planet would do little things like recycle properly, things like the Pacific garbage patch wouldn’t exist.

2.6M pounds of Houston recyclables tossed in landfill: Records reveal city broke its own recycling rules hundreds of times.

Of the estimated 2.6 million pounds of recyclables dumped where they didn’t belong, 1.1 million pounds—or 41 percent—were dumped after March 1, when the city’s new, state-of-the-art recycling center started processing recyclables.

shrug

If a tens of thousands of people do the right thing at the individual level and then a dozen people do the wrong thing out of expediency and profit, and there’s no mechanism for firing and replacing the irresponsible managers, then the efforts of the many are squandered to the profit of the few.