Trying to turn garbage into gold costs a lot more than expected. We need to ask ourselves: What is the goal here?

I remember talking with someone zealously converted to the pro-recycling position. I asked if she had ever *visited* a paper recycling plant and seen what they do with the ink, glue and bleach slurry used to turn the paper white again (e.g. dump it). Recycling anything nonmetal is still more wasteful and environmentally destructive than chucking it in a landfill where natural processes decompose it faster than you think.