Recycling is full of contradictions. A take that states it is simply bad or good will be incorrect. It has elements of both and criticisms / promotions can both be true at different levels of analysis and impact.

The typical Western socialist take will be largely critical and correct in terms of the function it serves in capitalism: it's mostly there as a PR campaign to address extremely wasteful production + distribution methods.

This is definitely true for plastics, where it is absurdly difficult to even know what plastics you can recycle in your locale and the vast majority ends up in landfills - if they actually wanted to recycle the stuff, they could, but they'd need to (1) change production to use more recyclable plastics and (2) standardize and fund large-scale plastic recycling centers so that there is no question whether an item is recyclable. Here's a fun example: even in places with relatively advanced recycling programs will not recycle the black plastic containers that tons of food service companies use. Solely because they close to use the black stuff rather than clear. Consequently, these liberal cities have literally promoted the use of something worse than styrofoam... as a replacement for styrofoam (the black plastic is heavier and more energy-intensive to produce). This kind of thing characterizes plastic recycling in general: it's mostly a waste of time at the systemic level.

On the other hand, let's look at the personal level. If you do know this stuff, you can try to avoid difficult-to-recycle plastics and put the correct items in the bin, which will make it so that you're not wasting the energy of the recycling sorting system and are actually getting your plastic bottle into the recycling pipeline. The system is inefficient PR bullshit, but you should still recycle, especially if you can learn what items should be recycled.

There are other materials that are efficiently recycled and we should promote their recycling, namely aluminum cans, steel cans, and glass. It is significantly more efficient to recycle aluminum than mine and process bauxite.

Finally, if your concern is climate change and the environment and you want to address your contribution via consumer choices, prepare yourself to need a PhD in systems analysis because the tradeoffs are complicated and difficult to compare. Example: glass is actually recyclable and will break down into an insert material, so you should buy drinks in glass bottles instead of plastic, right? Well it's not so clear, since it takes a lot more energy to produce and transport a glass container than a plastic one. You would need to know the total carbon inputs in an opaque supply chain in order to make an informed decision, and that's just within the realm of a single person making a consumer choice, a very limited contribution.

If there is one thing that is pretty much a guaranteed boom, it's to reduce consumption overall. Rather than think about supply chains on containers, don't buy the drink. Just make yourself a nice drink at home and out it in your water bottle. Cook from scratch because you will see all of the packaging and transportation required and have a less abstract relationship with your food and production. Prevent waste (don't let your food go bad). Buy shit second hand.

Those three R's weren't lying, reduce + reuse are way better than recycling.

PS we won't actually solve this problem without revolution. Capitalism will always try to push these costs onto society and will generally succeed without a counterbalance like a socialist party in power, dictatorship of the proletariat, etc.