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Or stop buying certain things. In America, at least, political decisions are not made with the interest of the average citizen in mind. There is a strong corp

Or stop buying certain things. In America, at least, political decisions are not made with the interest of the average citizen in mind. There is a strong corporate interest in getting you to buy stuff as often as possible and that heavily influences government policy. That is not to say that reducing consumption would not have a significant impact on the prosperity of the average citizen. I'm of the opinion that the effort should focus on making the re-use of materials profitable. Charge people by weight for what they throw away and provide a financial incentive for re-use/re-cycling of everything from food scraps to aluminum cans and you'll find that your trash disappears from the curb long before the garbage truck comes.

dmix 11y ago
A tax like that would put pressure on corporations to package their products in easily reusable forms, with less packaging, or run their own recycle programs for expensive short-lifespan products like iPhones . This would largely offset the costs on consumer. A significant amount of packaging could be reduced without much consequence on consumption. Especially for food. Grocery stores could use in-store branding/ads in place of flashy box designs. Plus as ecommerce/drones come to dominate, the need for flashy packaging won't be as important as website marketing. Those risks IMO would be limited to a transitional period while companies evolve their industrial design. The bigger problem is that it requires a big behavioral change for both producers and consumer... it's difficult to make humans change the behaviour they known their whole lives. Consumers will have to make an additional purchasing investment (analyzing the disposal costs and companies would have to invest in industrial design and rethink retail marketing.
- specialist 11y ago
  I'm optimistic that packaging will be greatly reduced in the near future. Much of current packaging is for retail presentation and theft prevention. Completely unnecessary for online shopping. In fact, I just learned about Amazon's Hassle Free Packaging option, which I imagine is motivated by reducing shipping and handling costs. That package should be arriving today. I have the impression the product's original box is used, vs putting it into another, larger box for shipping. The American diet is transitioning away from processed foods, which uses a lot of packaging. Kids, old and young, don't need every single thing to be a pretty cereal box or single serve container.
  - massysett 11y ago
    If that's Amazon's motivation then they have a lot of work to do. Their shipping practices are enormously wasteful. They will ship small, non-delicate items in huge cardboard boxes, with inflatable padding thrown in for even more waste. Other shippers have the good sense to use plastic bags for things like clothes, which cuts the weight and volume of the waste enormously. My house orders a lot of Amazon and I spend a lot of time each week just dealing with the enormous amount of shipping waste this generates. It's so bad that I am thinking of checking out Costco instead. I think it would be simple for Amazon to improve this if they actually cared but for them it's easier to toss everything into huge boxes and let the customer deal with the fallout.
    - majewsky 11y ago
      > They will ship small, non-delicate items in huge cardboard boxes, with inflatable padding thrown in for even more waste. At least we have social networks to rage about it: https://twitter.com/stefanmajewsky/status/642356938324475904 https://twitter.com/stefanmajewsky/status/642356938324475904 :)

dmix 11y ago

A tax like that would put pressure on corporations to package their products in easily reusable forms, with less packaging, or run their own recycle programs for expensive short-lifespan products like iPhones . This would largely offset the costs on consumer. A significant amount of packaging could be reduced without much consequence on consumption. Especially for food. Grocery stores could use in-store branding/ads in place of flashy box designs. Plus as ecommerce/drones come to dominate, the need for flashy packaging won't be as important as website marketing. Those risks IMO would be limited to a transitional period while companies evolve their industrial design. The bigger problem is that it requires a big behavioral change for both producers and consumer... it's difficult to make humans change the behaviour they known their whole lives. Consumers will have to make an additional purchasing investment (analyzing the disposal costs and companies would have to invest in industrial design and rethink retail marketing.

specialist 11y ago
I'm optimistic that packaging will be greatly reduced in the near future. Much of current packaging is for retail presentation and theft prevention. Completely unnecessary for online shopping. In fact, I just learned about Amazon's Hassle Free Packaging option, which I imagine is motivated by reducing shipping and handling costs. That package should be arriving today. I have the impression the product's original box is used, vs putting it into another, larger box for shipping. The American diet is transitioning away from processed foods, which uses a lot of packaging. Kids, old and young, don't need every single thing to be a pretty cereal box or single serve container.
- massysett 11y ago
  If that's Amazon's motivation then they have a lot of work to do. Their shipping practices are enormously wasteful. They will ship small, non-delicate items in huge cardboard boxes, with inflatable padding thrown in for even more waste. Other shippers have the good sense to use plastic bags for things like clothes, which cuts the weight and volume of the waste enormously. My house orders a lot of Amazon and I spend a lot of time each week just dealing with the enormous amount of shipping waste this generates. It's so bad that I am thinking of checking out Costco instead. I think it would be simple for Amazon to improve this if they actually cared but for them it's easier to toss everything into huge boxes and let the customer deal with the fallout.
  - majewsky 11y ago
    > They will ship small, non-delicate items in huge cardboard boxes, with inflatable padding thrown in for even more waste. At least we have social networks to rage about it: https://twitter.com/stefanmajewsky/status/642356938324475904 https://twitter.com/stefanmajewsky/status/642356938324475904 :)