I have a gym nearby that’s very expensive and focused on lifting. I am always so impressed by how the weights are always where they should be. The culture is amazing. In addition to people having respect for this, the weights there are colored which helps spot it visually. So the 45lb is blue, 55lb is orange, 35lb is yellow, 25lb is green. In my very anecdotal opinion this and well labeled racks go a long way here.
Compare another gym I use when I’m working from home: weights everywhere, no weight where it should be, and the weights themselves are inconsistently sized even at the same weight. It frustrates me to no end to have to pick through weights to find the ones I need for a lift.
That's the big difference between a "weightlifting gym", the first gym; and a "gym with weights", the second gym. The people going to the first go regularly and treat it like home, and the owners have to charge accordingly to buy and maintain good equipment, making it a place where the users choose to go. In the second, the preferred customer is someone that pays for a long contract but never goes to the gym and there's no point it making it other than surface-level nice. Then again the second gym costs half or a third of the first gym.
the colored plates come from olympic weightlifting.
0.5kg / 5kg white
1kg / 10kg green
1.5kg / 15kg yellow
2kg / 20kg blue
2.5kg / 25kg red
makes it easier to count the weight on the bar quickly (the metal collars are also 2.5kg each). the green 10kg plate is the first full size plate (ignoring youth/beginner plates).
Compare another gym I use when I’m working from home: weights everywhere, no weight where it should be, and the weights themselves are inconsistently sized even at the same weight. It frustrates me to no end to have to pick through weights to find the ones I need for a lift.