if we stop trying, they say "see, nobody wants us to bother with recycling."

if we continually bother with it and constantly make it known that our infrastructure and resources are lacking, they say "okay they want recycling so we should address that"

a city like Philly almost certainly can't enforce it alone and would require a massive urban renewal program on a state or hopefully federal level, but there needs to be funding set aside for aggressive resource management. a good start would be subsidies or tax relief for households and businesses that install some kind of well designed recycling bin that any dickhead passing by can't just toss their trash into.