youngoldbloke
The older I get, the faster I used to be ...
I don't bother with the figure of 8 or the bits of tape - they're just cosmetic - black tape on black bars anyway.
Students pitch out the old leather couch at the end of their college careers. I get the leather from there, clean it, and cut it into bar-tape sized strips.
In some places, it has quite definitely. Our city has garbage trucks for regular refuse, and another that collects recyclables from a separate container, then it is taken to a recycling center and sorted. In the Midwest, we seem to have a philosophy of use it up, wear it out, and then sell it off to someone else. On our local Craigslist, I keep seeing an advertisement for a Schwinn that was quite rusty, because the farmer only found it when he demolished a corn crib. Someone will buy it, eventually.This has to be the ulimate in recycling (excuse the pun). Something we are very much into in Europe, didn't know it had taken hold over there too.