Okay, I'll step up to the plate on this one and get the discussion rolling. My credentials, such as they are: * Member of the Western Australian Greens party for a year a couple of years back. * Subscriber to ReNew magazine, by the Alternative Technology Association. http://www.ata.org.au * Subscriber to "NaturalPower" (at 100%) from the local power provider http://www.synergyenergy.com.au/Residential_Segment/Green_Energy/NaturalPower.html * And going back a bit; In primary school, I created "World Preservers", a pro-environment group for kids. The first thing I'll do is agree that recycling is the least desirable of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. You're better off to buy reusable shopping bags like http://www.onyabags.com.au/ (I have half a dozen) and use them over and over, than to bring your bags back to the supermarket's recycling box. And if you do end up with plastic shopping bags, you're also better to reuse them yourself, either for moving things around or as a bin liner or whatever than, again, to have them recycled. But there are several reasons to recycle rather than just throw things out: * Not all countries have space for landfill. While the US (and Australia) have plenty of land, many European (and Asian) counties do not. Obviously, recycling is necessary for them. * While recycling generally isn't currently economically sustainable, ongoing investment is needed to bring the costs down. You can't just start an industry with everything fully evolved and highly efficient. Solar cells didn't just spring into being at 20% efficiency. * "Renewable" comes in shades. Monocrop horticulture is notorious for leaching all the goodness out of soil. Also, with increasing population, productive land is increasingly needed for food crops. There may not always be land for trees just to be turned into paper. So, that's my opening salvo. Yours, Chris J.