While companies definitely do push the idea and benefit from the misconception, they aren't the only ones. People got irrationally terrified of landfills for some reason, and that's what pushed a lot of recycling myths.

Like plastic is far from the only offender when it comes to failure to recycle. Besides newspaper and corrugated cardboard, every material has a <50% rate of actually being recycled according to the EPA. That includes basically all the product packaging that exists, including stuff people traditionally think of as easy to recycle, like cereal boxes, glass bottles and metal cans.