I agree that laws don't exist in a vacuum. What about what I wrote made you think I didn't? One problem with reframing this in terms of the goal of encouraging

I agree that laws don't exist in a vacuum. What about what I wrote made you think I didn't? One problem with reframing this in terms of the goal of encouraging recycling is that I don't think that's a worthy goal, in and of itself. I'm pretty sure that some things, like glass, are probably best not recycled. What I wrote was that, if people decided, e.g. that they really wanted to cleanup all of the waste plastic that wasn't already in landfills, then they should cover that cost. If the costs were really minimal (for whatever reason) that would mean recovering them from specific people or organizations less important. So you're right that it's not always possible, or even desirable, to exactly match costs to those imposing them. > It's economically infeasible to track down who threw that oil can in the curbside bin. Sure; but is that because the cost of throwing an oil can in the curbside bin is really small? If the cost of that behavior is itself small, then it can be covered inefficiently, e.g. by taxing the manufacturers of the oil cans or the oil. If the cost tho is large, then maybe individuals shouldn't retain the same latitude they have now to buy oil cans or oil without closer supervision or regulation.