I learned from game theory that these situations are the equivalent of the prisoner's dilemma.
In the prisoner's dilemma, in the case where you only play the game once, cooperation has a worse outcome for you, regardless of what your opponent does. It is a dominated option. Only in the case where the game is repeated many times, and where both players are paying attention to their opponent, only in that case does cooperation become a useful option.
When people recycle, we are choosing to cooperate. But as nobody is paying attention to what we're doing, it is always the dominated option. We end up having to work more, and we don't get better results. And then we inevitably get huge betrayals.
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't recycle. It simply means the game has shitty rules. That's why responsible government regulations are essential for environmentalism, if we actually want to see results.
