The folks who came up with the 3 R's (plastics industry) knew that only the first one made any difference whatsoever.

Even today, plastics recycling only makes a trivial difference. Edit: And a lot of things saying "uses X% recycled plastic" are often referring to the plastic recycled in-house through the manufacturing process, which they've always done (such as flash from injection molding). Unless it says "post-consumer" it's just moral grandstanding.

However, steel is the most recycled material today, and glass is also good at being recycled. But glass has a weight (and therefore energy) penalty, which likely outweighs recycling benefits.