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Could cities be served better if instead of completely banning plastics, they put a huge tax on most kinds of plastics and used the proceeds to cleanup the envi
by abhinai 8y ago
Could cities be served better if instead of completely banning plastics, they put a huge tax on most kinds of plastics and used the proceeds to cleanup the environment?
The simple logic here is it would force everyone to use plastics only where they are absolutely necessary and avoid the unforeseen problems that usually accompany complete bans.
- dehrmann 8y agoHuge tax, no, but making people pay for externalities is fair and a bit less extreme than an outright ban.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoYeah. A more nuanced approach would probably have just as much positive outcome without the collateral damage of a straight up ban. However, the politicians are not incentivized to do this because it does not come with the virtue points that you get by taking a hardliner stance (e.g. a ban) so it never happens.
- julien_c 8y agoYou can sell reusable plastic bags so if absolutely necessary you can always buy them.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- michaelbuckbee 8y agoOur local Aldi's is like this - they don't provide free disposable plastic bags, but if you forget to bring canvas ones you can buy thicker reusable ones for $1 a piece.
- SirensOfTitan 8y agoFrom my very limited understanding pigouvian taxes do not work well if they're dealing with leaky faucets. That is, if I can just drive across state lines from New York to New Jersey to buy plastic bags, New York's plastic tax wouldn't work too well.
- ehsankia 8y agoI don't really understand the scenario. You're at the grocery store, and you would drive to New Jersey to get a plastic bag? If people can actually think of bringing plastic bags when going shopping, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoI think the GP's argument is that retailers (not consumers) would cross state lines to buy plastic bags for their stores. There are pretty simple ways around this, though. For instance, tax based on number of plastics handed out, not the number purchased.
- YjSe2GMQ 8y agoWe need exactly that for the really big environmental problem - global warming. So far it's not great, only Europe has a CO2 credits system and while it's designed to be plugged into a global system they're mostly a joke. But then the appeal of the likes of Green New Deals are stealing away the attention.