Hello College. Remember Me, the Eco Freak?

Honestly, I always sort of figured that if there was one thing that college students would know about and uphold, it would be recycling.
I'm sure I didn't have the strongest grounds to back up this theory, but really now. College students are supposed to be the ones who know about the world. They're smarter (perhaps) than the average human, more likely to be a hipster and less likely to be a crack addict than the average high schooler or drop out. So of course that means that they should care more about the planet, and living in a sustainable environment, right?
Well, apparently I was wrong. No one - no one - in the Thompson library understands recycling.
Like, okay, it's one thing to simply not recycle. Sure, I want people to recycle. I want at least some of our resources to be reused so that we are not continually taking needlessly from the environment, but if people refuse to take part in that, I'm not going to pick a fight. Well, unless I know you - then I'll pick a fight. But I avoid that kind of thing with complete strangers.
But here's the problem we have at the library, and probably all over campus; people don't seem to know what goes in a recycling can. For instance; the styrofoam takeout containers from Canes? NO. The plastic bags from the grocery store? NO. Ziploc bags, apple cores, pizza boxes (still with pizza inside), broken mechanical pencils, tea bags? This is what I see every day when I put my apple juice bottle into the recycling (the trash can, I might add, contrasts nicely with the recycling; it normally has all kinds of paper and plastic). I mean, can anything really be done with the recycling that is taken out from here? Clearly, less than half of the stuff in the recycling can will be recycled, but is there a way that they sort it out, or do the recycling men just make a judgement decision and pitch all of it? I asked my co-worker one day why she put her used gum in the recycling. She told me it was because the janitors just put all of the recycling cans in the dumpster anyway. I mean really, what's the point of having recycling cans at this point? Clearly, no one except Environmental Policy majors can figure out how to use them.