The key culprit in the global warming debate is the burning of fuels such as oil, gas, coal and wood for production, transportation, heating and cooling, etc. Besides providing energy, when ignited these fuels also produce carbon dioxide, water vapor, other gases and particulates. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on recycling to greatly improve this situation. For one thing, recycling consumes energy, given that it is a transporting and manufacturing process like any other production system. For another, once energy is used, its usefulness is gone forever and not available for reuse or recycling.
Light makes right.
From a global warming perspective, making products and packaging lighter should take precedence, even over recycling. The reason is that lighter products and packages reduce material, energy use and transportation costs all the way from raw material extraction through production and distribution and on to retail purchase, consumption and disposal. This means that lighter weight materials such as paper, plastic films, metal foils and multi-material composites should be encouraged versus their heavier and more rigid competitors. The reason is that both the environmental and economic costs of transporting heavy materials to and from the recycling center and to the smelter often outweigh the value of recycling them. This is especially true in the United States, where smelters are relatively few and the distances to and from them tend to be rather large.