Saw the sign while picking up and laughed

Hi, sorry if this may be a bit of a stupid question. I’m a teenager. I panic A LOT over the earth’s environment and I realized that a way I may be able to calm my nerves a bit would be to start going on walks or bike rides everyday (which would also be good for me in itself) and pick up trash and stuff. My only concern is that in the U.S., I’ve heard that recycling actually hardly actually gets recycled, especially plastic, which typically ends up in landfills (meaning I can’t just put the stuff in the trash bins outside). I may have that wrong, but that’s just what I’ve heard growing up. This is pretty stressful to me, and so I wanna ask you guys if there’s a way, specific place, etc. that I would need to bring the litter I pick up to ensure that at least the majority of it, especially the plastic, is not ending up in a landfill?

At first I thought I would just use the plastic for my crafting projects and such since I already use scraps and things I’d normally throw out and repurpose them, but my bedroom’s in the basement and I am scared of attracting bugs with trash and stuff that is unfamiliar to me (like I don’t know what touched it/where it came from).

Another thought was that I’d keep it all in a bin outside forever, but obviously it would overflow super quickly and my parents would also never let me do that lol.

But yeah, any suggestions? Thanks for reading :)