Not sure honestly what the cause is (I doubt there’s a singular explanation, nothings black and white like that ever)

I do know there are some common problems with contamination, costs (China might’ve grabbed this opportunity), market demand for whatever the output of the recycling operation is fluctuating, logistics, and I’m gonna argue that there’s not really much legislation to push for this.

The good news is they recently were able to make graphene with plastics (very high demand, tough to produce) which could be huge for civ as a whole. Things like space elevators are more plausible with advances like these