[a2dam]

Again, it’s not meaningless; it likely changes your behaviors in ways you aren’t conscious of, and the plastic is actually reused.

Also, I’d suggest you aren’t the median person. Even if it had zero effect on your behavior, that likely isn’t true for others.

[jjj123]

Sure, but I can craft an equally plausible opposite effect: by recycling plastic, the average person is tricking themselves into thinking they’re not actually creating more trash, that what they just put in the bin is going to be reused. This feeling lowers the barrier to use more single use plastic.

We don’t know which is the more powerful effect, so you can’t really say if recycling plastic is meaningfully good or bad on the whole.