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> The survey also showed that, across all regions, farmers, almost unanimously, were opposed to covering the costs of recycling themselves. > The answer: Exte
by whimsicalism 3y ago
> The survey also showed that, across all regions, farmers, almost unanimously, were opposed to covering the costs
of recycling themselves.
> The answer: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Shifting the responsibility for managing materials at the end of life away from consumers and onto producers, … It’s not uncommon for manufacturers of computers or tires to ask consumers to pay an extra fee at the time of purchase for the cost of collecting and recycling the product.
Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that this is economically equivalent to making the farmers pay for the recycling.
- yummypaint 3y agoGood. It's part of their businesses expenses and should not be externalized. If that causes them to shift away from plastic then it was never viable to begin with.
- whimsicalism 3y agoI fully agree, but think it is misleading that the article presents this as a solution for the farmers desires.
- kragen 3y agoit's a solution in the sense that it forces them to pay even though they don't want to, just like payroll withholding is a solution to the problem of people not wanting to pay income tax
- circusfly 3y ago"It’s not uncommon for manufacturers of computers or tires to ask consumers to pay an extra fee at the time of purchase for the cost of collecting and recycling the product." The quote is stating that expenses are passed to the consumer, how is that good? It's also talking about things like tires, I think we can all agree the world wouldn't function without tires unless we're all willing to go back to the horse and buggy?
- axus 3y agoI don't want to pay for the cleanup of pollution, let the farmer and farmer's customers pay for that.
- maxk42 3y agoYou are the farmer's customer.
- insider-trade 3y agoSo you’re against putting economic disincentives on plastic pollution… … but you don’t believe in market forces coming into play to drive consumers to less expensive food grown by farmers who use less plastic.
- maxk42 3y agoAre you replying to the right person?
- 2000UltraDeluxe 3y agoSo, everyone that buys food?
- insider-trade 3y agoYes lol. I can’t believe you have difficulty understanding that costs that go into producing food accumulate into the cost of the food. Or is plastic pollution the part you don’t understand? Either way, both are simple.
- 2000UltraDeluxe 3y agoI live down-wind of most of said plastic garbage where I live. Trust me: by now I'd happily pay the neighbours to clean their own plastic garbage from my field. Right now it costs me a day of work every spring to get rud of it.
- InSteady 3y agoPlastic recycling is a scam. It was never actually viable, just propped up by the plastics industry to alleviate consumer conscience about all the waste and environmental degradation. Since China stopped accepting plastics almost a decade ago (due to the expense and mounting burden on their healthcare system) most of our recycled and sorted plastic in the US gets shipped across the globe only to be burned or dumped in the ocean on route. Caveat: there are exactly 2 types of plastic that are economically viable to recycle (it still loses money for everyone involved along the way to the plant, but at least the final recycler can recoup costs): PET and HDPE. Unfortunately, according to google, these are not the most used types of plastic in farming. That would be PP and LDPE.
- whimsicalism 3y agoYeah when I was a teenager I investigated my high schools plastic recycling supply chain. It is absolutely a scam, at least in many modern ‘single stream’ incarnations. Split stream is real for at least some I think. Or was.
- pintxo 3y agoEconomically it’s the same, but not psychologically. And that’s probably equally important because the homo oeconomicus is just the spherical cow of economics and not a real thing.
- whimsicalism 3y agoYou’re probably right, but I also think this perspective of “they don’t want these costs, so we will find some way of laundering it into the supply chain” makes people feel like they are being infantilized. People don’t like the increasingly paternalistic perspective policymakers take, even if it is perhaps justified sometimes.
- insider-trade 3y agoIf you feel infantilized, that’s good because it means that you have a conscience and you realize that you are actually in the wrong. Don’t act like an infant if you don’t want to be treated like one.
- whimsicalism 3y agoThe reality is that this is a political problem and making the population feel like infants or assholes is not going to endear them to your policies. Either you somehow wrest control by force or you have to win hearts.
- insider-trade 3y agoEducation has been tried. If that doesn’t work, yes you have to try something else. “Just let them be assholes or else you’re the real asshole for not letting them be assholes” is not a good argument. Let people buy any gun they want, because infantilizing. Let people sell meth, because… Let people withhold wages…
- whimsicalism 3y ago
- tengbretson 3y agoThere's a minor difference in that the cost of recycling is extracted up front so it disincentivizes a farmer from mounding up plastic waste in a field and burning it.
- randomdata 3y ago> Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that this is economically equivalent to making the farmers pay for the recycling. Which, in turn, is economically equivalent to food eaters paying the cost. There's no free lunch – figuratively and literally. Economically, it doesn't really matter all that much where you place the cost. Socially, though...