Entropy

“Well, I agree with your examples, but they don’t exclude the possibility that there are ways having a net positive effect.” I said.

“Unfortunately, no. And I can give you a water-tight proof,” my friend said quietly, “The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy goes up with all activities.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean human beings follow the laws of thermodynamics, and all human activities - or you can all them economic activities - lead to an increase in the degree of disorder in this universe. Pollution, when you come to think of it, is the sociologists' term for entropy.”

"Alas, I begin to see what you are getting at," I murmured, "If we take outdated newspapers and old books as the disordered state, the recycled products are in a better order. The process of conversion, therefore, always involves something that creates more disorderliness running in parallel. In other words, some other form of pollution must happens."

"Unfortunately, we are not alchemists. The world we are living is different from that of Edward Elric, and exchange is never equivalent. Any attempt of generating orderliness, or recycling if you like, would have an overall effect of creating more pollution - often in an area that we hardly notice."