Good point. But to be honest I don’t believe in recycling plastics, the properties degrade too much after recycling and there are almost no pure plastics today. Most of the plastics used in the industry and consumer products are a mix of many different plastics. But there are exceptions, PET bottles are quite successful and have a high yield of recycling.
Even we swedes who recycle everything, end up using plastic for fuel in our combined heat-power biomass plants. It is more economical and more environmentally effective then to refine and ship the plastic back to china for new products.
And I don’t see the problem to take it one step further, why bother separating the parts of a cordless drill when you can grind everything down to dust, separate the metal, burn the rest and continue to separate the untouched materials in the ash. Products made entirely from one type of material especially glass, wood/paper, plastics such as PET or metal should still be recycled separate because of the high yield.
Designers should focus on design - recycling plants on recycling.