From: foy@aero.org (Richard Foy)
Subject: Re: Recycling Costs and Libertarian Candidates
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:53:21 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.184237.15100@morrow.stanford.edu> GA.JRG@forsythe.stanford.edu (June Genis) writes:
#
#Well, we definitely wouldn't be forcing people to separate their
#garbage if they didn't want to.  What we would be trying to do is
#make sure that people had to pay the full costs of disposing of
#their refuse.  If recycling is working the money paid to the refuse
#collector for the raw recyclable materials should more than pay for
#the cost of collecting them.  Refuse costs should include both the
#dumping fees for the garbage (which of course should be based on
#volume and not be a flat fee for any amount collected) plus an
#overhead fee to pay for acquisition of new dump sites if that hasn't
#been already figured into the dump fees.

The trouble with this argument is that the person who would be paying
for the refuse disposal is not the most most directly responsible for
creating the refuse. That is the producer of the products. If I want
something that is packaged in plastic I don't have a choice of buying
it without the wrapping. If I don't want to save my junk mail I don't
have a choice but to discard it. The producers should be the one
who pays the cost of the ultimate disposal.

#
#In practice this land replacement cost is rarely figured into the
#price that governments charge for refuse disposal so the cost of
#dumping is artificially lowered.  The only way to create more of a
#market for the recyclables themselves is for individuals to make a
#commitment to buying products made from recycled materials.

There is another way and that is to have the producer of products 
have to pay the total cost of the ultimate disposal of the ultimate
waste less the savings in disposal costs that they achieve by using
recycled materials.

#Unfortunately, in the short term this can mean a commitment to
#spending more money since production overhead will be higher for
#smaller volume products.  One way to combat this is to line up large
#organizations which can use high volumes of some particular type of
#recycled material to commit to the program for the PR value even if
#it raised their short term costs.  

Do you think there is a resoanble chance of this happening? 

#You can also line up pledges to
#purchase products made from recycled materials if the supplier can
#get the price down to some agreed on level.  A committed market
#should encourage both existing suppliers to increase their capacity
#and entrepreneurs to look for innovative ways to reduce costs.
#

Again, do you think that this will happen?

#Most of this you will note, does not require any action by the
#government but only by concerned (and greedy :-) individuals which
#is exactly the way that Libertarians think the world should work.
#
#/June


Yes, all of what you say does not require any government action. However,
it hasn't happened in the past. It most likely won't happen in the future.

The main reason IMO is that the concerned people are not so concerned that
they will spend their money when they see unconcerned people undoing all their
good works. The greedy people will have too short term goals to set up the
system required to make your approach work. 

I suspect that if the full cost of the product to waste dump cycle were
fully compared to the full cost of the product to recycling approach
were known and if the true cost of the overpackaging approach were known
one would find recycling to be much more economically efficient.

A producer will NOT used recycled materials because he bears the cost
of recyling while he does not bear the cost of waste disposal. Most
people won't pay the extra cost of buying products made with recycled
materials because they don't save the cost of avoided waste disposal 
that some other noble citizen saved the disposal agency by not 
depositing their material in the land fill. 

It is a chicken and egg situation.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections