Good to now know that it’s not their preference. I hope its not pissing off the graders and resulting in all my perceived gems getting 9s 
I think it does not make much difference . The pro is less plastic/paper and dirt so nature is the winner here.
[Need to edit 
: sure the result is a slab, that’s a lose for nature :- 
]
Everyone complaining about the plastic waste, does realize the cut card savers just get recycled and melted down again to make other plastic products right?
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Do you know for a fact PSA properly recycles? I would assume the same, but you never know with some of these companies
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I think it has more to do with the idea that plastic recycling is essentially nonexistent in the US.
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Not just in the US, only 9% of the world’s plastic has ever been recycled and about 1% has ever been recycled more than once.
Plastic is terriblely ineffective when it comes to being recycled. It’s not something like aluminum that can just be melted down over and over and will still maintain its properties. And its so cheap to produce new plastic products that recycling is not incentivised
Its a shame but a few million cardsavers pale in comparison to the thousands of plastic waterbottles consumed every second. Or even the amount of waste tpci produces with their products if you want to keep it specific to the hobby
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…generated by this cardboard hobby. 
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@JoshsOddCollection @lamplamp @redsticktcg @kpod US plastic produce has increased year over year since the effort to ban plastic straws, utensils, etc, and the industry for non-consumer plastic is growing in the US right now. It’s just, as pfm says, not economically practical to properly recycle plastics or to use degradable packaging, because of its properties and need to extend shelf-life. It doesn’t actually “meltdown” but rather has to be chemically emulsified… Which is Cool, but not efficient. 
Having some type of paper booster packs for example, would kick costs up significantly, but I’d be down, as it would also prevent re-sealing. Can’t seal torn paper…
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Aluminum card savers when
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Not only do grading companies throw out our plastic toploaders/card savers, they also produce an amount of plastic equal in quantity, but greater in size than what’s discarded.
The cards are biodegradable, the slabs are not.
So the real question is, what becomes of the plastic cases all these millions of cards are trapped in after we’re all dead and gone?
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I had the same concern. We reuse card savers & sleeves for that reason, but there is a significant amount of plastic that gets used outside of that. Slabs come with plastic covers inside more plastic packaging. Most supplemental materials used in the process also come in plastic packaging of some kind from manufactures. It’s a little rough.
In regards to the slabs themselves outliving us though I think that’s more or less the point, to preserve a piece of history. 
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I like this sentiment!
It’s also important to remember, most of the plastic humans use is for industrial apps, not consumers, so PSA slabs and card savers are not gonna break the camel’s back.
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