This is not entirely true, and 1% is not true at all. You must abide by your area’s rules re recycling. In mine, we can’t recycle items with food stuck on it, like a pizza box, or a box that hasn’t been broken down. It’s best to remove the labels on cans and water bottles, etc. The list goes on. It’s up to us to recycle properly. None of us can judge Adam if we don’t know his habits on recycling. Plastic is not going away anytime soon, and glass breaks and has its own dangers. There isn’t an easy fix. No need to be sorry.
How you need to recycle depends on how your recycling is processed -- and in the USA that is local.
Sorry for a longish, late post but I do research in this area -- and agree that it is best to avoid plastic and Starbucks. (Go somewhere where the coffee comes in a china cup.)
The other thing to do is to only recycle high-demand, clean items. So metal, uncoated paper, and clear water bottles are good; most food service non-food waste is trash.
Another great thing to do is buy merchandise that is made from recycled materials and packaged in materials made from recycled items. For example, Rothy's makes shoes that are 3D knitted (no waste) from plastic thread made from water bottles. And the entire business is built around sustainable consumption processes.
I have some researchers working on a research project to determine if it is better to trash or recycle a plastic food container in Tucson because of the water needed to wash out the container. (You cannot recycle a container with food still on it. But we do not have a lot of water here.) Many small cities in Arizona have stopped recycling programs because they don't make economic sense. Tucson (my hometown) still has residential recycling.
A lot of waste in the US is commercial recycling and higher quality than residential recycling. More of the same items and more volume (economies of scale).
But most US recycling does not end up in landfills, and most does not get shipped overseas as "trash." What does end up is landfills is about 22% of recycling which is food contaminated or not recyclable (mixed plastic, wrong type of plastic, mixed materials, and so on).
Everything changed in 2017 when China changed their policies. Tucson (my city) used to earn $1 million to $1.5 million a year from recycling. The funds were used to pay for the cost of bad recycling. Now, it costs the city $2 to $3.5 million dollars a year. So, they are working to IDing poor recyclers and then are taking away their blue bins and charge fines. It's working.
U.S. currently (2018) composts and recycles about about 36% of waste, and 12% of waste is incinerated and often converted to energy. We are down to 54% going to landfills -- including rejected recycling. The reuse of recycled materials varies a lot by location but Phoenix (Republic) processes recycling up to the very strict Chinese import standards.
Some forms of plastic are being banned -- country by country, and in the US locally. This will do a lot to help.
Disposable, non-biodegradable and non-compostable plastic will almost entirely be gone by 2030 -- except in health care and military uses. China's ban on disposable plastics, and disposable plastic manufacturing -- phased in from 2020 to 2025 -- pretty much did it.
All of the major food service and consumer package goods companies are aggressively working on getting rid of