I hate the styrofoam cups, containers, plastic bottles etc can't tell you how many I pick up when I wade creeks or fish local rivers. If I wanted to each fishing session could turn into just a litter collection. I usually manage to find a plastic bag that fill with crap. Upon getting home if there is aluminum I throw it in my aluminum scrap. I haul my scrap metal to the local metal scrap/recycler occasionally it pays enough to usually make it worth it. Granted all the metal I get isn't from my cans or crap I pick up I work on cars, tractors, engines etc pretty frequently at home so I end up with old parts that when I accumulate enough I scrap them anyway. So since I make a scrap run every so often I go ahead and throw almost every earthly thing I can into my scrap pile that is metal of some kind. The aluminum/metal from household waste doesn't add up to much, but I scrap it anyways since I make the trip regardless.
We recycle our platic, glass, paper, and cardboard. In the winter a lot of the paper/cardboard I use to start fires since I heat my garage with a wood stove. It's about as if we need to go back to go forward glass and metals are easy to recycle well at least much easier than plastic. So almost seems as if we should go back to more glass containers to make reusing or recycling them easier. Frankly the throw away single use containers should go away. You want a gas station soda have a reusable cup or bottle to fill at the fountain. I'll admit I'm guilty of getting a drink at the gas station in a throw away cup from time to time. But when it comes to bottles I always try and just keep refilling and reusing the same water bottles/thermos's of mine. Plastic bags could go away not that difficult to either have paper or bring your own. At least the paper break downs easily, is easier to recycle or burn than plastic. I'm not saying all plastic should go away it has it's uses for more long term things like car components or other things that have more than a one time use life span. IT's all the plastic crap that tends to not get recycled even when thrown in recycle containers cause there is just so much of it, and there isn't a good easy way to recycle or reuse all of it. Metal is easy people recycle it cause there is some money in scrap. Heck in almost in any city I would bet you don't have to look long to find some guy going around in a old truck grabbing anything metal from dumpsters/garbage or some hobo with a shopping cart picking up whatever he can walk down to the nearest scraper. Heck I do it I keep all my beer/aluminum cans till I make my next scrap run. Heck when I pick up trash when fishing I throw any of the aluminum cans I find into the my aluminum bin when I get home.
I also feel littering should be punished and taken more seriously, nothing irritates me more than seeing throw crap out the window of a car or dumping crap in the nearest no where ditch. The nets are good start to trying to keep crap out of where it shouldn't be, it cost money, but many places already waste tons of money on litter clean up street sweepers, city sanitation workers, etc. It looks like where they put the nets in if they fill too fast during floods the water can just roll over the top of the cement pipe they attach to. Not a perfect solution, but at least it's something. What should be done is for anyone getting a bunch of government assistance or unemployment those people should be made to be apart of road clean up crews to get it. If they don't want to work and make a living and want welfare well make them earn it since they probably haven't paid that much into with taxes.