[berbec]

I don't know about never. The price of a product is related to its scarcity. At a certain point, there will be recyclable materials we are almost out of. At that point, I can see recycling becoming very profitable.

I can see a time when we mine garbage dumps for materials.

[schrectacular]

I think about this a lot too. Plastic is extremely energy-dense. The landfills of today could easily be the fuel mines if the future. And yes, it will be full of contaminants, but coal is tainted with heavy metals and radioactive materials.

Anyway, recycling has always been a resource drain to make people feel good. It's definitely better to recapture and contain as much waste as possible, but people don't think about things like how much water is wasted by rinsing all those bottles out.