system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is recycling items made of cardboard so essential when they will degrade anyway?
gpt
You are using them again, saving the use of other materials to make new cardboard.  All forms of recycling prolongs things and saves us using up raw materials unnecessarily.   That is why we do it for anything we recycle.  Eventually something will get to the point where it can't be used again, but we will have got better use out of it.