Theodore & to all other experts:

We keep hearing a lot of energy is needed for recycling. But the amount of labor (especially child/illegally labor) & exploitation of environment needed for fresh extraction of metals is being avoided, then isn't that a big benefit. There are a lot of external costs associated to child/illegally labor & environment damage which if effectively calculated should be less than energy costs of recycling

In short even if takes more energy to recycle, there is an abundance of energy so wouldn't that be a good incentive for governments to support/legislate recycling ?

Sorry if it seams a bit pessimistic (and sorry for my english) but recycling is not a solution as it consumes a lot of energy and because a significant proportion of the materials is lost (for exemple you loose 2/3 of 1 unit of cooper when recycled). It could be a good thing that reviewers starts to understand that it has been known for a long time (officialy since de 70's with The Limit to Growth report and there is a lot that has been written about it since then) and that this is a bit to late to think about it because litteraly nobody (industrials, politicians) did anything, we just continued in the wrong direction to make everything worse everyday... The only efficient solution that we know now is to consume much less but who is realy ready for this (even me, writing this from my asus laptop).