Corrugated cardboard is a net benefit to recycle, I've heard. Otherwise you are correct. It's just feel-good. Most of what you drop off at recycling centers is just trucked to landfills after it's out of your sight.

> Most of what you drop off at recycling centers is just trucked to landfills after it's out of your sight.

This is definitely not true in Germany. And for glass bottle recycling, most bottles are washed and reused up to 50 times before being melted down.

Lead too because it keeps it out of the environment and reduces the need for lead mining.

Quality Paper (not 5th generation cardboard) is energy-efficient to recycle

It's energy efficient, but it lessens the demand for tree farms, which themselves are good for the environment.

I haven't seen that before. How are tree farms good for the environment?

It depends on how you classify "good for the environment." In terms of biodiversity, if tree farms are replacing old-growth forests, they're terrible for the environment. However, if tree farms are located in places that have long been cleared (such as conventional farm land), they can bring back biodiversity, prevent soil erosion, and most importantly are extremely efficient at carbon capture.

Of course, most of the studies on this are sponsored by the paper industry, and it's really difficult to get unbiased information on the subject.