When you put something in the bin it means it "goes to the recycler" not "it gets recycled". The recycler sorts through the trash and recycles what they can. The price of oil, currently low, makes it less viable to recycle plastic. Not every container that has that little symbol on the bottom is really commonly recycled.

The vagueness of what happens at the recycler coupled with the fact that the packaging industry puts symbols on container that the average person thinks they mean they will be recycled, lead me to believe that a lot of this is done to make us feel better. I think we all should try to minimize the amount of packaging we use. Water bottles and plastic bags are completely unnecessary.