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It's not a question of protecting the producer, it's the fact that the producer is making something that has at least some benefit to society - the containers.
by Nifty3929 3y ago
It's not a question of protecting the producer, it's the fact that the producer is making something that has at least some benefit to society - the containers. If we stop them from producing the containers, then society loses out on that benefit. It may still be worthwhile to stop them, but businesses exist to the benefit of their customers and stopping them is not without it's own costs.
We banned the use of asbestos in most situations, and therefore lost the benefit of an excellent building and insulation material. But we decided that was a worthwhile tradeoff considering the well-established health impacts.
- Fauntleroy 3y agoWouldn't banning the material also lead to market pressure to develop containers that aren't in violation? Why are we ignoring this point?
- unglaublich 3y agoExactly. The market is not asking for PFAS containers, the market is asking for containers with the price and quality aspects of these containers.
- woleium 3y agoor why not ban in 18 months, like they do in the eu, give companies time to retool
- MichaelZuo 3y agoMarket pressure to produce an asbestos functional equivalent has led nowhere (at a similar cost), after several decades. Since the outcome is unknown until after a huge amount of time and expense, how would you factor it in beforehand?
- unglaublich 3y agoDoes 'similar cost' include all the down-stream healthcare and lost productive life years cost?
- MichaelZuo 3y agoNo, because that also cannot be known until after all the downstream effects happen in fact and people in the future tally up the costs. So in either case it makes no sense to try to factor in ‘market pressure’ beforehand.
- unglaublich 3y agoThere are plenty of alternative packaging materials without the health effects of PFAS, just like we learned to build properly and safely without asbestos. Same holds for all extinct products, like leaded paints and leaded gasoline. We can't really expect customers to make informed decisions about the large scale environmnetal and health impact of products, regulating them is exactly the job of the governing body.
- rayiner 3y ago> There are plenty of alternative packaging materials without the health effects of PFAS, just like we learned to build properly and safely without asbestos. That’s exactly the sort of thing that would be addressed in a cost-benefit analysis. If there’s good alternatives, the cost of the ban is lower. The issue isn’t whether expert agencies should be making these decisions, it’s that the expert agency here didn’t actually do the expert analysis the law requires.
- unglaublich 3y agoWhat's the cost of polluting the environment? Burning a limited reserve of fossil oils? Ripping up developing societies? The cost to humanity is enormous. The cost to a company is zero.