I once watched a depression era family member of mine dismantle a Chinese take out container, flatten and wash the cardboard part of it and then put it in the paper recycling, and straighten out the wire handle to put into a little jar with other wires and bits of metal.
Same family member once showed me a stack of paper grocery bags she had taken into her place from her building’s paper recycling, upset that someone had thrown away perfectly good paper bags.
Implying that it was worse and has gotten better, or will get better to the point where data hoarding is unnecessary. I guess it would be nice if things turned out that well.