What are the benefits to the environment from recycling paper?
The main environmental benefit from recycling is the lower volume of rubbish going to rubbish tips. In some circumstances, recycling can reduce the amount of electricity used in making paper, and therefore the amount of greenhouse gases emitted (although this will not always happen). Since recycling mainly replaces fibres from trees grown in plantations (“virgin fibre”) or waste from other timber harvesting, it does not have a major impact on the logging of Australia’s native forests. However, there may be environmental costs associated with recycling such as increased usage of fossil fuels by the trucks collecting the waste material.
