It was always an empty gesture designed from the start to put the onus on the general population so that plastic could still be produced and sold at ever increasing rates without any responsibility for its outcome. This is also why the least effective part of reduce, reuse, recycle was always emphasized.
Even if only 10% of plastic gets recycled, it’s still a lot of plastic that doesn’t end up in the landfills or incinerators. It’s still good to do. Only now we know we still have to demand more regulation on the companies who produce it all and not accept another recycling campaign in place of real action.