ABSTRACT
Children are taught at school that recycling is a good thing to do, and that the more stuff that is recycled, the better. The collection and recycling of glass bottles and metal cans have been happening for a long time now. Glass waste is usually used to make more bottles and reduce the new raw materials that are needed. Metal waste goes back into the metal production process, again sparing the use of natural resources. Both processes also reduce the amount of energy needed to make new material. A significant problem with the material that gets recycled is that the quality falls away quickly because it is mixed up with other materials. With newspapers, for example, when they are pulped, the cellulose fibre length gets shorter because of the mechanical process involved, and a certain amount of new wood pulp needs to be added every time so it can be reused to make newsprint of sufficient quality.
