In many poorer nations and communities, I've observed people spending their hard-earned money on buying lottery tickets. I realized that for those people, the lottery is a source of hope, and that people are willing to take a few extra steps (or spend money) for hope.
Even when people are incentivized to accumulate their plastic waste for selling by weight to informal or formal recyclers (e.g. the "kabariwallahs" in India, who roam residential neighborhoods and buy up plastic, newspapers, etc by weight),  the small-format plastic items like sachets, wrappers, container lids, etc are often ignored and dumped in the trash.

I believe that if each of those small-format items were to become the equivalent of one entry into a potentially life-changing lottery, or part of a game to accumulate points towards a recycling leaderboard, then many people would take more care in properly accumulating those small plastic items and ensuring they are properly routed for recycling. 

It is likely that such an initiative needs a network of establishments or acceptance locations for the plastics. We must make stakeholders out of the product manufacturers whose packaging is the source of such small-format items. For example, manufacturers could recycle the small format plastics by incorporating them into their products and packaging, similar to recent examples from P&G's Head & Shoulders, Adidas, Pharell Willilam's clothing line, etc.