Benefits of Recycling?

We are constantly being encouraged to recycle as muchs as we can, and to save our councils too much trouble we have to divide this up into an increeasing number of separate containers for collection.

I thought my council tax went in part to pay for the processing of my waste but I seem to have to do more of the work myself.

How green is this all though?  Where I live we are lucky in that we have only five different categories: Non recyclable waste; Paper; Glass, Metal and Plastic; Textiles; Garden waste, Cardboard, Shredded Paper and Food waste.

Easy enough to separate, but requiring a fair amount of space to keep all the bins, bags and boxes necessary.  The food waste is collected during the day in a sealed tub (I bought that myself) and taken out to the main bin.

Where it starts falling down is the fact that the council would like the contents of the plastic, glass and metal bin to be washed out - given that it is only emptied every two weeks that is also required to keep it from becoming too smelly - so I am now wasting water to do this.

Then we have the parade of collection lorries, with three separate vehicles coming round on the recycling week.  That contributes wonderfully to pollution I guess and congestion on the roads adding yet more to the pollution.

Finally this collected material is then distributed far and wide for processing.  Yet more road mileage, and I believe some waste is not even processed in this country so is shipped abroad.

Anyone see the flaws in this yet?

There also seem to be differences between what various councils will and won't process.  If I get polystyrene food trays they are not accepted, despite having a recycling symbol on them, yet other councils are quite happy to accept them but will have their own exclusions that are processed here.  How about a national standard on this?

I am also amazed that when man can be sent to the moon, and many countries automate separation of recyclable materials, here it is down to the householder in the first instance and then teams of people at the recycling centre.

Is this actually beneficial to the country / planet?

My final thought is one that many talk about but few seem to action - why not cut down on excessive packaging or the use of materials that cannot be reused or recycled easily at the source? 

We have become a throwaway society and this is not good.  Money and resources can be saved by addressing this.