Let us not forget what happened when the convenience of plastics hit the markets, the trash collection sector of the government was inundated with material that

Let us not forget what happened when the convenience of plastics hit the markets, the trash collection sector of the government was inundated with material that it never had to deal with before, in quantities that the developed countries of the world now regret. City and county trash, which is considered the government's job, was utterly and forever ruined by plastic. Consumers loved plastics, stores loved plastics, everybody loved plastics when it arrived because it was a tremendous improvement upon what existed before, which was mainly cardboard, paper, and glass containers. But trash companies had NO way to handle the quantities other than with landfills. The companies that used the most plastics saw the writing on the wall, they were going to be charged tremendous amounts for the plastic they were putting out. This is what created the recycling programs as we know it: "In order to avoid regulation and the banning of plastic products they used, the beverage and packaging industry pushed municipal recycling programs."[1] Impressive marketing work by pepsi/coke/fritolay to pass the buck. Apple isn't doing the same thing, because they aren't literally trashing the world, this 911 feature does not create anywhere near such a negative externality, but to say that "we already pay our government for this" doesn't mean that the the corporation is off the hook, "we did our part, now you handle the 99% of effort and costs of getting this feature we are promoting to work, oh and you will need to assume the blame if and when things don't work". I don't think it should work that way... [1]: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/recycling-myths-blue-bins/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/recycling-my...