the clock thing is probably a bug, but with a recycling centre you need to have a trade depot, trucks, etc, and also one of the addons at the recycling thing
I just feel that there should be a line, where the simcity 4 people stay in the simcity 4 bit, and the new simcityians, (new players or players upgrading) in the new game, and obviously they'd be problems, if there weren't problems at launch, then that would mean nobody plays it, which is worse