We are lucky at this stage that our local council only requires us to have three wheely bins: a small one for general rubbish, a bigger one with a blue lid for recyclables and a green (formerly maroon) one for garden waste. It’s a bit of a squeeze to fit them all in, but we manage. At least, our general rubbish is collected each week, which is not the case in some adjoining council areas.

But I note with horror the decisions of some of these other councils to add more wheely bins to the list – at least one more and in some cases, two. The objective of this switch is to encourage – should that be insist on? – the further separation of recyclables. I think glass is one category and possibly aluminium cans the other.

I accept that I won’t be receiving any prizes for recycling any time soon. I’m not exactly sure of the current rules. I give it a shot by randomly placing some items in the bin with the blue lid, but I’m not convinced that I always get it right.

Until recently, I did notice a lot of people taking bags of soft plastic – I’m not sure what is and what is not soft plastic – down to the supermarket to be thoughtfully and profitably (?) moved along the chain for recycling. The bins full of soft plastic always seemed to be overflowing.

The supermarkets were trying to buff up their green credentials by being involved in the program. But it turned out that the whole process was essentially a hoax: there were never any viable companies to take the used soft plastic and to recycle it. The piles and piles of discarded material have now been sent to landfill, which is where they should have gone in the first place.

There are some other great stories in the recycling space. I had thought that the only single-use product that could be efficiently and economically recycled locally was aluminium cans. It turns out I was wrong: there are no companies which can do this and make money here.

As a result, the crushed cans are sent to India, notwithstanding the commitment of the Morrison government, and endorsed by Labor, that none of our waste for recycling would be sent overseas. And it’s not as if the Albanese government can now claim ignorance because this action requires regular ministerial approval.

Of course, the normal political response flows smoothly from the mouths of politicians: it’s only a short-term solution, we are working on developing a local recycling industry, we have committed money in the budget to encouraging recycling, etc., etc.

But notwithstanding substantial incentives for the local recycling industry, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in total, the brutal reality is that there really is no market for recycled products. All that guff about the circular economy where resources would be saved and people could get rich by recycling everything has turned out to be untrue.

The costs of collection, transport, sorting and then recycling mean that it is almost always cheaper to start again. This is particularly the case given the energy-intensive nature of recycling and the current cost of energy.

Take glass. It has to be sorted into colours, at a minimum. It has to be smashed.  (We used to reuse glass bottles in the old days – you know, when I was a girl – but this hasn’t been allowed for a very long time.) It then has to be subject to a massive heat blast.

Given that sand is the principal component of glass, is it really a surprise that it doesn’t make sense to recycle glass apart from providing the basis for misleading, green-tinged marketing campaigns? You know the sort of thing: enjoy your overpriced plonk and save the planet at the same time by drinking out of bottles made from recycled glass.

And don’t get me on to those ridiculous container deposit schemes that are run by various state governments. First introduced in South Australia, drinks manufacturers are required to impose a deposit on the purchase of all cans and bottles – I think it’s still 10 cents but it could be 20 cents – and people can drive a fair distance on average to one of the government-run collection centres to deposit the empty containers and receive their deposit back.

In all the years I lived in Adelaide, I did not once drive up the hill to get my money back. Why would you bother? One of the few beneficiaries seemed to be desperate people at sporting and other events who would roam around collecting empty bottles and cans. To be sure, I simply placed my empty bottles and cans in the recycled bin, so I’m still not sure what the point of the scheme was if it wasn’t to encourage recycling.

Actually, understanding the weakness of the scheme, various South Australian governments pointed to the anti-littering impact. The trouble was that there was no evidence whatsoever that littering in South Australia was less than in other states without schemes. Analysis by those hard-nosed – some would say hard-hearted – economists at the Productivity Commission pointed to the costs far outweighing the benefits of container deposit schemes.

Illustrating the point that even very bad ideas can be contagious, other states have followed with the introduction of their own versions of container deposit schemes. My current favourite is the Queensland one which pays the kiddies to save up their used fruit popper boxes, which are made from liquid paperboard, and receive money for returning them for recycling. The school principals actively encourage this activity, with the proceeds snaffled by the schools themselves.

Seeing an opportunity to indoctrinate the young fry, the blurb from the government agency reads as follows: ‘Meet the adorable Popper Patrol, Containers for Change’s newest heroes seeking to inspire kids across Queensland to recycle their drink poppers. Featuring Harry Popper, Dolly Carton, Bruce Juice and Annie Smith, these characters will help kids engage kids on their recycling journey.’

An itsy-bitsy problem with the scheme is that there is no local recycling of the popper boxes. The Queensland government has been ‘selling’ – OK, giving them away – to a private Brisbane company which has then been exporting the poppers to India, where the material is apparently pulped and used for construction. A new Taj Mahal, perhaps?

But don’t worry, according to government sources, the Containers for Change scheme has recycled more than five billion containers across the state since its inception and created nearly 800 full-time equivalent jobs.

Pull the other one, I say.