Edit to say - I’m really glad I asked my stupid question. I was so jaded by the con artists in recycling I forgot that when done right there’s so much good - and still loads of consequences to not finding a place to reuse the paper products. I’m not huge with using packaging - and thanks for all the thoughtful answers :))

I found myself wondering this as I got annoyed at the plastics industry and their stupid propaganda, as I do everytime I go to recycle something. But anyway, I had been thinking I’d heard something about people going to ‘mine’ landfills for metal because people weren’t recycling and it’s ‘bad for the environment’ and 'filling up ‘landfills’

removed Please. I can see the dollar symbols on your pupils from here.

So it made me think, paper and the such breaks down quickly. Food too. The huge drives for community composting efforts and cardboard drives for schools etc - It’s really all a matter of the fact we can re-use it all easily. Metal is worth money, used again and again, as it was straight from the earth. Just that plastic. Which is all but unrecyclable, save some clear/semi-clear containers.

But without the cardboard, my bin is pretty empty. It’s like recycling exists just to pretend plastic can be.

Edit - I should add in my area if the recycling the plant receives is tainted in anyway they just toss it. The whole load. So unrecyclable plastic? Dirty? Wrong material? Gone.

  • Bumblebb@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    You cannot make paper out of all wood.

    Additionally, the process to remove lignin, a binding protein, from wood in order to make paper is extraordinarily environmentally destructive. Paper mills do not smell good and are toxic waste sites for a reason

    • xantoxis@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Yes, I know all that. The argument I was replying to was that you run out of trees if you use them to make paper without recycling. That argument is false. You’re arguing with points I didn’t make.