This piece on Yahoo-Australia caught my attention. It describes the reason behind Nestlé's temporary change of the KitKat logo to the recycling symbol.

It seems that nearly half of Australian consumers don’t know how to recycle properly. KitKat wrappers are made of soft plastic, which can be recycled, but customers don't seem to know this.

Of course, this problem is not unique to Australia; there is huge ignorance about what to recycle and how, all across the world.

Here in Germany, where the public is generally well-informed, there is also a lot of ignorance about recycling: I regularly see paper and cardboard put into the recycling bin in plastic bags; I see expanded polystyrene, which cannot be recycled, put into the plastic recycling bin; I have been told by neighbours that you can only put "bio" food waste (which means waste from organic produce) into the "bio-Müll" (compost bin); many people still put old batteries into the normal garbage; the list goes on.

Part of the problem is the poor labelling on products; yes, it says that you should recycle the packaging, but not, but not into which recycling bin. Another problem is that there is a different system of separation of recycling in different locations. This is exacerbated by the prevalence of mixed material packaging (most often paper and plastic together, often very hard to separate).

We (consumers, governments, and manufacturers) need to do better.