That's an American take. In Latin America they sit in boxes and you can see it, because the pages will have been discolored after so many years of sitting somewhere waiting to be sold. They're only recycled if they're given away at book exchange events and no one wants them.
Looks to me, going by this reporting, that LATAM treats books identically to the US (The first headline, translated, is literally "If not sold or donated, books can become toilet paper")
In central America for example I went to Panama's book fair and you could see old books for sale. There's a lot of fear among booksellers that a book will not sell, because they purely resell them so any losses fall entirely on booksellers. They do not have any partnerships with publishers
