8 ms·

California will have a proposition on the 2022 ballot eliminating foam packaging and imposing a 1 cent fee on plastic packaging to be paid by manufacturers. ht

by tarr11 5y ago

California will have a proposition on the 2022 ballot eliminating foam packaging and imposing a 1 cent fee on plastic packaging to be paid by manufacturers. https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/new-california-ballot-measure-would-ban-styrofoam-food-packaging-force-industry-to-reduce-plastic-litter/amp/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/new-california-ballot...

c54 5y ago
Does anyone else find this bit just comical: > The measure is opposed by the plastics industry. Tim Shestek, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that includes large companies such as Dow, DuPont, 3M and ExxonMobil Chemical, called the measure “a massive taxpayer-funded giveaway of billions of dollars to fund a variety of special interest pet projects.” > He said it threatens small businesses like restaurants and that the plastics industry is committed to reducing plastic waste. Oh, good, the plastics industry is coming to help reduce how much plastic they sell. It's transparent to the point of being satirical! It's also just funny to me that the slightest price signal ($0.01 per piece of packaging) is deemed completely untenable, and further a 'giveaway' of funds. Give me a break! The market works on price signals. We are allowed to create signals to indicate our preferences (less trash everywhere please) in order to have the computer (the market) solve for a more optimal solution. Collective action (eg legislation like the one mentioned) is the way to do this!
- refurb 5y ago
  Oh you know the only approved replacement for plastic will be some eco-plastic that the rep sponsoring the bill just so happens to have already invested in and actually takes more energy to produce than plastic.
  - c54 5y ago
    This is valid and interesting, in fact there are two almost separate problems we have from an environemntal/sustainability point of view: How much energy does a thing cost, and how much waste does it produce. These aren't the same! For instance, a plastic grocery bag costs minimal energy but produces infinite-lifespan waste, while a reusable cloth bag costs like 10,000x energy to produce (between farming cotton, spinning it, weaving it, etc), but if left outside would only last for several years (ie a 1/10,000 lifespan). We have to consider both these tradeoffs! Bioplastic probably is somewhere closer to a happy middle: costs 2x the energy of a tradplastic but lasts 1/10,000 shorter. Admittedly I've made up all these numbers but: all compromises aren't equal, we can do better than we do now, the multipliers matter
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      > in fact there are two almost separate problems we have from an environemntal/sustainability point of view Indeed they are, and I'd argue that in current situation, we can and should ignore one of them. Climate change is an immediate existential threat to human civilization. Long-living, mostly inert waste is an inconvenience. As long as we're still sourcing majority of our energy from fossil fuels, more energy use = more carbon footprint = worsening the crisis. The issue of plastic waste is irrelevant relative to that - we can clean the house up after it is no longer on fire.
  - hexa22 5y ago
    My state of South Australia banned a lot of plastic last year. I don’t think even “ecoplastics” like PLA are allowed. It’s all cardboard, paper, bamboo, light wood or other odd things like sugar cane pulp. The vast majority of the containers work just as well as the plastic ones did.
umeshunni 5y ago
> 1 cent fee on plastic packaging to be paid by manufacturers It's adorable that CA thinks that manufacuters will be the ones bearing this cost.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  It doesn’t. But it’s almost certainly the cheapest way to assess it; doing it at point of sale would be far more fuss and administration.
  - syshum 5y ago
    >> doing it at point of sale would be far more fuss One of the reasons why I oppose VAT style taxation Each citizen should at minimum see on a itemized bill the amount of money the government is collecting from them, IMO each citizen should be forced to write out a check to every government entity that needs to collect money Automated, and hidden taxes is one of the reason the government can actually steal errrr collect as much money as it does, because if people had to pay their taxes like they do their utility bill there would be continual protests in the streets
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > Each citizen should at minimum see on a itemized bill the amount of money the government is collecting from them We have that. It's called a "tax return". > each citizen should be forced to write out a check to every government entity that needs to collect money You do understand how that would increase government bureaucracy, right? Whereas I'm sure your goal is the opposite. > if people had to pay their taxes like they do their utility bill there would be continual protests in the streets Maybe you would protest. Most people likely would not - they bear far worse from their governments on the daily.
      - caylus 5y ago
        > We have that. It's called a "tax return". I believe GP's point is that a tax return only lists a small subset of the taxes being collected from a citizen, giving the impression that the amount is smaller than it is. Social Security taxes are a great example of this - for W2 employees they don't show up on their tax return at all. And even if the employee looks at the box labeled "social security tax" on their W2, that's still only half of it, because the other half is a "payroll tax" that the employee never sees, even in their "gross income". When you add consumption taxes, making sure to include both the ones that show up as "sales tax" on a receipt and the ones that get baked into the price (e.g. gas taxes), it becomes extremely difficult to come up with an individual's fully-loaded tax rate.
gruez 5y ago
1 cent charge seems a bit low? For fruits and vegetables I'll gladly pay that fee so I can see the quality of the product before buying.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
I understand that the one-cent fee will raise money for state-run recycling and cleanup efforts, I'd like to see something bigger that would help shift the incentives towards using recyclable products. Here[1] is a polystyrene case of 200 for $28.99 retail, this would make that cost $30.99. The eco-friendly version is $57.99: [2], and that doesn't even have the compartments that the foam does; if you want those it's closer to $90. I'm sure the costs to the manufacturers themselves are lower than that. To a restaurant, it's a 2-dollar fee on a 30-dollar case that doesn't make the 60-dollar alternative a smart financial decision. Alternatively, it's a 1-cent fee on a 14-cent product, compared to a 29-cent product. I like when a restaurant gives me my food in an eco-friendly container, now I know that it cost them about 15 cents of my purchase to do so. [1] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/dart-90htpf3r-9-x-9-x-3-white-foam-three-compartment-square-take-out-container-with-perforated-hinged-lid-case/30190HTPF3R.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/dart-90htpf3r-9-x-9-x-3-whi... [2] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-9-x-9-x-3-biodegradable-compostable-sugarcane-bagasse-1-compartment-takeout-box-case/395TO991.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-9-x-9-x-3-biodegr...
mmckelvy 5y ago
I find it a bit odd that we always seem to ignore a very important cost when it comes to producing goods: the cost to (ultimately) dispose of them. Disposing of goods certainly isn't free, and it's a cost that both producers and consumers should probably share instead of just foisting it on the general public as a negative externality. Will adding this disposal cost make certain products prohibitively expensive? Sure. But if no one can (or will) pay for your product after all the associated costs are baked in, then that's just the market's way of telling you that you shouldn't be making that product.
- ThePadawan 5y ago
  This isn't unthinkable - in Switzerland, whenever you buy a an electric device (not just electronics!), a part of your purchase cost will be the pre-purchase of the associated recycling cost. This enables the workflow where anyone can simply walk up to a retailer and hand them their old white goods free of charge - and they legally have to collect it, even if they didn't originally sell that item.

by tarr11 5y ago

c54 5y ago

Does anyone else find this bit just comical: > The measure is opposed by the plastics industry. Tim Shestek, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that includes large companies such as Dow, DuPont, 3M and ExxonMobil Chemical, called the measure “a massive taxpayer-funded giveaway of billions of dollars to fund a variety of special interest pet projects.” > He said it threatens small businesses like restaurants and that the plastics industry is committed to reducing plastic waste. Oh, good, the plastics industry is coming to help reduce how much plastic they sell. It's transparent to the point of being satirical! It's also just funny to me that the slightest price signal ($0.01 per piece of packaging) is deemed completely untenable, and further a 'giveaway' of funds. Give me a break! The market works on price signals. We are allowed to create signals to indicate our preferences (less trash everywhere please) in order to have the computer (the market) solve for a more optimal solution. Collective action (eg legislation like the one mentioned) is the way to do this!

refurb 5y ago
Oh you know the only approved replacement for plastic will be some eco-plastic that the rep sponsoring the bill just so happens to have already invested in and actually takes more energy to produce than plastic.
- c54 5y ago
  This is valid and interesting, in fact there are two almost separate problems we have from an environemntal/sustainability point of view: How much energy does a thing cost, and how much waste does it produce. These aren't the same! For instance, a plastic grocery bag costs minimal energy but produces infinite-lifespan waste, while a reusable cloth bag costs like 10,000x energy to produce (between farming cotton, spinning it, weaving it, etc), but if left outside would only last for several years (ie a 1/10,000 lifespan). We have to consider both these tradeoffs! Bioplastic probably is somewhere closer to a happy middle: costs 2x the energy of a tradplastic but lasts 1/10,000 shorter. Admittedly I've made up all these numbers but: all compromises aren't equal, we can do better than we do now, the multipliers matter
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    > in fact there are two almost separate problems we have from an environemntal/sustainability point of view Indeed they are, and I'd argue that in current situation, we can and should ignore one of them. Climate change is an immediate existential threat to human civilization. Long-living, mostly inert waste is an inconvenience. As long as we're still sourcing majority of our energy from fossil fuels, more energy use = more carbon footprint = worsening the crisis. The issue of plastic waste is irrelevant relative to that - we can clean the house up after it is no longer on fire.
- hexa22 5y ago
  My state of South Australia banned a lot of plastic last year. I don’t think even “ecoplastics” like PLA are allowed. It’s all cardboard, paper, bamboo, light wood or other odd things like sugar cane pulp. The vast majority of the containers work just as well as the plastic ones did.

umeshunni 5y ago

> 1 cent fee on plastic packaging to be paid by manufacturers It's adorable that CA thinks that manufacuters will be the ones bearing this cost.

rsynnott 5y ago
It doesn’t. But it’s almost certainly the cheapest way to assess it; doing it at point of sale would be far more fuss and administration.
- syshum 5y ago
  >> doing it at point of sale would be far more fuss One of the reasons why I oppose VAT style taxation Each citizen should at minimum see on a itemized bill the amount of money the government is collecting from them, IMO each citizen should be forced to write out a check to every government entity that needs to collect money Automated, and hidden taxes is one of the reason the government can actually steal errrr collect as much money as it does, because if people had to pay their taxes like they do their utility bill there would be continual protests in the streets
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > Each citizen should at minimum see on a itemized bill the amount of money the government is collecting from them We have that. It's called a "tax return". > each citizen should be forced to write out a check to every government entity that needs to collect money You do understand how that would increase government bureaucracy, right? Whereas I'm sure your goal is the opposite. > if people had to pay their taxes like they do their utility bill there would be continual protests in the streets Maybe you would protest. Most people likely would not - they bear far worse from their governments on the daily.
    - caylus 5y ago
      > We have that. It's called a "tax return". I believe GP's point is that a tax return only lists a small subset of the taxes being collected from a citizen, giving the impression that the amount is smaller than it is. Social Security taxes are a great example of this - for W2 employees they don't show up on their tax return at all. And even if the employee looks at the box labeled "social security tax" on their W2, that's still only half of it, because the other half is a "payroll tax" that the employee never sees, even in their "gross income". When you add consumption taxes, making sure to include both the ones that show up as "sales tax" on a receipt and the ones that get baked into the price (e.g. gas taxes), it becomes extremely difficult to come up with an individual's fully-loaded tax rate.

gruez 5y ago

1 cent charge seems a bit low? For fruits and vegetables I'll gladly pay that fee so I can see the quality of the product before buying.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

I understand that the one-cent fee will raise money for state-run recycling and cleanup efforts, I'd like to see something bigger that would help shift the incentives towards using recyclable products. Here[1] is a polystyrene case of 200 for $28.99 retail, this would make that cost $30.99. The eco-friendly version is $57.99: [2], and that doesn't even have the compartments that the foam does; if you want those it's closer to $90. I'm sure the costs to the manufacturers themselves are lower than that. To a restaurant, it's a 2-dollar fee on a 30-dollar case that doesn't make the 60-dollar alternative a smart financial decision. Alternatively, it's a 1-cent fee on a 14-cent product, compared to a 29-cent product. I like when a restaurant gives me my food in an eco-friendly container, now I know that it cost them about 15 cents of my purchase to do so. [1] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/dart-90htpf3r-9-x-9-x-3-white-foam-three-compartment-square-take-out-container-with-perforated-hinged-lid-case/30190HTPF3R.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/dart-90htpf3r-9-x-9-x-3-whi... [2] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-9-x-9-x-3-biodegradable-compostable-sugarcane-bagasse-1-compartment-takeout-box-case/395TO991.html https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-9-x-9-x-3-biodegr...

mmckelvy 5y ago

I find it a bit odd that we always seem to ignore a very important cost when it comes to producing goods: the cost to (ultimately) dispose of them. Disposing of goods certainly isn't free, and it's a cost that both producers and consumers should probably share instead of just foisting it on the general public as a negative externality. Will adding this disposal cost make certain products prohibitively expensive? Sure. But if no one can (or will) pay for your product after all the associated costs are baked in, then that's just the market's way of telling you that you shouldn't be making that product.

ThePadawan 5y ago
This isn't unthinkable - in Switzerland, whenever you buy a an electric device (not just electronics!), a part of your purchase cost will be the pre-purchase of the associated recycling cost. This enables the workflow where anyone can simply walk up to a retailer and hand them their old white goods free of charge - and they legally have to collect it, even if they didn't originally sell that item.