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No, it's a value problem. When the resources tied up in recyclables are scarce enough from other sources, the value will go up. When you're really hungry and t
by barrkel 8y ago
No, it's a value problem. When the resources tied up in recyclables are scarce enough from other sources, the value will go up.
When you're really hungry and there's not much food, your willingness to pay more for it increases. Same mechanism.
Ultimately we need to bake the cost of disposal into the purchase price.
- ohithereyou 8y agoI've always found it odd that the free market hawks are so against factoring the externalities of their decisions into pricing.
- sgregnt 8y agoI think this isn't true what you say, Do you have links? I always assumed some of the free market hawks are to incorporate the externalities in the cost, e.g. selling the right to pollute.
- ohithereyou 8y agoBiggest example to me is the push to loosen regulation on the fossil fuel industry without enacting a tax that pays for mitigating the damage that burning their fuel does to the climate.
- AnthonyMouse 8y agoYou're confusing theory with politics. In theory the free market works when transactions are consensual, which means you can't pollute someone else's property without their permission, and they're not inclined to give it to you without due compensation. In practice there are a lot of politicians in places where fossil fuels are a major industry, and they're pragmatists with no real principles other than wanting to get elected.