Do you ever wonder why people recycle old newspapers? To save precious trees, you might think. But trees are a renewable resource, if grown in managed forests and replanted as quickly as they are cut down. Transporting old newspapers to recycling plants, on the other hand, uses up non-renewable fossil fuel. So is it conceivable that recycling newspapers does more harm than good?
Inside the vast Aylesford Newsprint recycling plant on the banks of the River Medway in Kent, doubts such as these feel like heresy. Here, one in seven of Britain's newspapers and magazines, totalling 500,000 tonnes of paper a year, are deposited by the UK waste industry and, instead of being dumped, are turned back into newsprint that is sold to newspaper publishers in Britain and continental Europe.
