🚀 go-pugleaf

Don Homuth <dhomuthoneatcomcast.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:09:39 -0700, lein <boomer_the_cat@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >On Jun 8, 6:54 am, pjb...@webtv.net (Paul J. Berg) wrote:
> >> `
> >> January 1, 2009 will be a big day for Oregonians who care about
> >> recycling. That's the day that consumers will be required to plunk down
> >> a nickel deposit on every bottle of water they buy. It's also the day
> >> that Oregon will officially have a statewide system for free and
> >> convenient recycling of old televisions and computers.
> >
> >So how is recycling of old televisions and computers free?
> 
> It's not -- there will be a cost. But unfortunately the term "free" is
> too often conflated with the phrase "at no charge."
> 
> The better question is who should pay it?  My take is that the
> purchase should pay the Entire cost of the product, right through to
> the disposal stage.  That way everyone would Know what the True Cost
> of what they buy is, and that would constitute a pretty good incentive
> for manufacturers to design so as to minimize disposal costs as well
> as performance.
> 
> TANSTAAFAL, as they saying used to go.  It's still true.

Yeah, but in the mean time, if you have a TV or a CRT on your hands, you
shouldn't just throw it into a dumpster, because it's toxic waste. If
there's a fee for processing it, people will just put their TVs in the
dumpster rather than pay. But if the city picks up the tab, the toxic
waste won't end up in the landfill because more people will do the right
thing if it's 'free.'

Internalizing the costs of waste disposal is good. But there's a lot of
waste already out there that won't fit into that economic system.

-- 
http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html