I agree with you on a lot of this, but I don't think it matters if we get better at recycling paper because paper is renewable and the more paper we need, the more trees are farmed, that wouldn't be farmed otherwise. It seems like people believe that paper comes from unspoiled ancient rainforests, when really it comes from rotated tree farms in Canada as far as I know. If we recycled paper so well that our demand halved, a lot of those tree farms wouldn't be planted anymore. It seems to me like if paper is dumped in the landfill the carbon those trees capture gets buried underground. Big win.

Also, I'm maybe a monster environmentally thinks utility needs to factor in. Straws are made of plastic because straws are useful and because plastic makes a very good straw. Paper makes a useless one, so they're pointless to even make. So many things use a lot more plastic than straws do, so I sincerely think straws should be the last to go after we've ended plastic water bottles, takeout clamshells, milk cartons, etc. Put all that crap in reusable glass or recyclable aluminum.