When you go to the grocery store, you may get brown paper bags. These can be readily recycled, however, they could also be composted.
I would think that recycling requires energy, whereas composting requires no energy other than that needed to stir the pile periodically. Are you giving up energy by composting that you would reclaim by recycling and if so, does the difference make up for the energy required to perform the composting?
So which is more energy efficient to recycle or compost brown paper bags?