Just bury your trash: What if everything we know about recycling is wrong?

Modern landfills, when properly managed, may actually be cleaner, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly than recycling for much of our waste. The article challenges the assumption that reusable products are always better, showing that single-use items often require far less energy to produce than their durable alternatives—for example, a cotton tote bag needs to be reused 173 times to match the environmental cost of a plastic bag, and a steel straw requires 150 uses to offset its production energy.