Ask Lemmy

You technically didn't ask for them, but presumably this goes hand-in-hand with reduce and reuse as first steps, which would have perhaps a more visible impact.

Reduce means to cut back on the amount of products we produce in the first place, particularly also the trash being used for packaging.
This would require:

• More craftsmanship. Instead of buying a new jeans when your pants have a hole, you'd sew them.
• More robust, repairable products. Don't need to throw away the whole phone due to a broken screen when it doesn't break in the first place or if you can get the screen replaced.
• More sharing. Not every household needs their own car or toolbox or whatever, if you can share them with your neighbors.
• There would be more shops that sell products unpackaged, where you bring your own containers to fill.

Reuse means to sell products in glass jars, metal boxes or similar, which can be washed out and filled anew.
This would require:

• Some container-deposit system, so that you can bring your emptied glass jars etc. back to the shops and the shop sends it back to the producer.
• In that vein, there would need to be a tax on non-reusable packaging to finance the recycling or safe deposition of it.
• Some products would probably be sold in larger quantities or not anymore, because they just aren't sustainable, if you make them pay their environmental costs.

As for recycling, i.e. breaking the thing down and creating a new thing, it's unlikely that we would ever reach 100% with it alone, at the very least because it's more effort than reduce and reuse.
But to improve our rates, there is a whole load of products currently being sold in plastic, which could be sold in paper or wood, if glass jars or metal boxes don't work there.

In a hypothetical world, where we could have 100% effective recycling without giving a toss about reduce and reuse, then I guess, we'd have a garbage disposal system which funnels right back into a massive 3D printer.