As regular readers know, in the past year I have come to think that the recycling programs we grew up with are a figleaf that allows maximum production of stuff which lingers in the environment forever, while shoving all costs of cleanup onto taxpayers and volunteers.
The obvious solution is to make the producer pay the cost of recycling. that would provide the economic incentive to make better products and less wasteful crap – and in a capitalist society like ours, economic incentives are the only incentives that really work.
As the Portland Press-Herald reports (story here) some folks in Maine are considering that idea:
The Environment and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday received a briefing on similar programs – called extended producer responsibility, or EPR – in Europe and North America.
A draft bill to establish a state program is pending, but in bare terms it would function like this: The packaging material producers would establish a third-party organization that would pay fees to municipalities based on the type, amount and design of their packaging.
If municipalities dispose of readily recyclable materials, then producers would repay their costs. The fees could otherwise be spent on outreach, education and infrastructure.
Makes sense to me, although it would be painful for the companies and probably result in some products that we use disappearing, because they couldn’t justify the cost. The thing is that the cost already exists, but it’s so spread out and covered by others that we pretend it doesn’t exist.
The obvious question is: how much of those imposed producer costs will be passed along to consumers? (Let’s not pretend that “producer pays” is the end of the story.) Apart from the issue of how tempting it will be for towns to shift incoming “fees” to boondoggles (“outreach, education and infrastructure”) instead of a straight offset of their recycling costs.
But overall it’s a good idea (incentive-wise) for recycling costs to be borne by the recyclers instead of the community as a whole.
all of it, presumably – which will be a real pain. But when we buy less of the more-expensive stuff, that will be an incentive for companies to develop truly sustainable packaging (if that’s possible)
I have often felt that the creator of the waste should be responsible for it. A bill like this would encourage producers to step up. Here’s an example : I heat with pellets, ending up with 150 #4 empty plastic bags at the end of the season. #4 plastic is repurposed and there are collection points at grocery stores. If enough people actually brought their empty pellet bags to the grocer, that collection point would be overwhelmed. So I called the pellet company, asked them to take their bags back. I offered to drop my bags off at season end. This
” local” pellet manufacturer is owned by a CO firm, and they would need permission from CO. I then contacted the CO firm to try to arrange this, got a nice reply, but no action. This isn’t rocket science. Easy to do. Yet, it’s not happening. So a bill like the above might finally incentivize the NH pellet location to get on the ball and do something about all those plastic bags they use in their product.