What you describe is the exception, and not the norm. It's also what usually gets shown as an example in the media, but isn't entirely honest. Some industry with uniform waste streams (zero net waste plants, etc) might do what you describe, but it's not common for municipal programs, who might have 2-4 different bins for dozens of different plastics.
And keep in mind, for most materials, and especially plastic, the recycling center pays for someone to take the material. Metals used to be a big exception, and could be used to offset the cost of recycling the other materials, but even they have greatly decreased in extractable value recently.
And even bales like you describe might need to be re-sorted for cleanliness, color, type of contaminate, or anything else. Most municipal programs are not producing "ready-to-recycle" bundles of plastic, unless it's being used solely as a filler.
With that in mind, dumping the stuff of lower value in Asia makes sense, where people can pick out individual things of value, or things that might have value after getting washed in the local river.
My description is of a small municipal recycling center.
I've seen the baling done.
I know the person that markets their output. The recycling center gets paid for the output. If they don't get paid for something, it goes in the landfill they are located at.
And keep in mind, for most materials, and especially plastic, the recycling center pays for someone to take the material. Metals used to be a big exception, and could be used to offset the cost of recycling the other materials, but even they have greatly decreased in extractable value recently.
And even bales like you describe might need to be re-sorted for cleanliness, color, type of contaminate, or anything else. Most municipal programs are not producing "ready-to-recycle" bundles of plastic, unless it's being used solely as a filler.
With that in mind, dumping the stuff of lower value in Asia makes sense, where people can pick out individual things of value, or things that might have value after getting washed in the local river.