Eco-guilt

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by RStar

Think about it. Do you know where most of the paper pulp ( like newspaper and cardboard) and steel (like cars) are recycled? From what I hear it's Japan. That's a rather large carbon footprint just shipping it there. Does it save greenhouse gasses to recycle it over mining more? I don't know. Even shipping aluminum cans around the country to recycle adds to greenhouse gasses.

It's China actually, not Japan. Though there is a fair amount of recycling that takes place here in the states. But as far as the transportation to China is concerned, what makes it economical to send the paper to China for recycling is all of the empty cargo containers already heading there. As long as we have a trade deficit with China, that will remain the case.

But the bigger oddity of paper recycling is that it takes more energy to recycle paper than to use virgin pulp.