Too often, when fishing or collecting my pots, my bag is filled with trash that I then have to bring over to the recycling machines time and time again. I think a modest addition to the game would be an additional bag upgrade that turns those trash items into their respective non trash items upon gathering them. The recycle machines would be useful still in the early game, but it does become cumbersome when your fishing/trapping operation gets larger.
To be fair thats what the fishing upgrade is for as it eliminates the possibility of trash from traps. As far as fishing goes I dont get much trash unless im going for a lava eel
I usually put a handful of 'trash' machines and/or a chest near my trap/fishing operations to tackle this problem (I usually get flak for 'storing items in a non-central location' but u know what??? it works out usefully for me??) idk if that is something that would help u