When considering whether or not to implement recycling, there are things that must be considered. One big one is how clean the incoming plastic will be – and I don’t think a lot of fast food customers are the sort of people who are going to be very willing to wash it all off before dumping it in the bin.
Also, there must be some way to recycle the stuff – someone willing to cart it away and make it into something else, or get it to someone who can. In my area, that hasn’t proven feasible, as there is no municipal recycling of plastic other that #1 and #2. Even if places wanted to collect it, there’s nowhere for them to send it.
From a customer’s-eye view, recycling is as simple as throwing it into the bin and then it’s out-of-sight, out-of-mind. But if there’s nothing that a business can do with the waste, they’re just going to throw it into the same dumpster as the rest of the trash.
(At my Whole Foods out here, customer pressure to recycle was so great that they finally gave in to some of it. It enhances that shine on the thin green veneer they have going.)