Recycling The problem of recycling paper is the amount of energy that must be expended to remove inks and dyes. Most paper plants are not equipped for recycling operations, or cannot handle the mixture of pulps that comes with collected paper for recycling. The cost of buying wood and producing new pulp is still cheaper than recycling. Desire to conserve forests and reduce landfill accumulations of paper has promoted recycling. CORK Cork is not wood, since it is part of the bark, not secondary xylem.
Most trees produce only small amounts of cork cells.
Its bark is presumably the product of natural selection because it provides protection against fire damage. Cork is an insulating material because of its numerous air-filled cells. It withstands high compression and is lightweight. These qualities made cork attractive to Greeks and Romans who used it for soles of shoes and fishing floats, applications still used today. Species native to southwestern China are the entire diets for the Giant Panda, as well as the source of raw materials used for construction of house walls, fences, and furniture.