>>276030604
Looking it up it seems like things have improved since that one Penn and Teller episode.
Still, it seems like it's only metals and glass that are big wins. Paper (in the US) is mostly harvested from managed sustainable forests, like all wood products here, so it's a carbon sink. Plastics are often not a win at all and the only point of recycling them would be to save landfill space, but we're not running out of empty land in the US so it's not really an issue.
What's telling in that article is the last proposed benefit of recycling, "Getting everyone involved." It's a feel-good activity to get people in the environmentalist tent, not necessarily a real impactful way to fight climate change.