I've got a solution to the recycling problem. Pass a law that says that every company has to accept back any products they provide, when they reach end-of-life. So, for example, retailers would have to accept packaging waste back from customers, and the wholesaler that sold them the product would have to accept it back from them. Internalizing the cost of dealing with waste would motivate companies to make less disposable stuff, and find ways to make it easier to recycle:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-era-of-easy-recycling-may-be-coming-to-an-end/
@strypey Looking around my office...
I have literally no idea where most of these things came from.
As a business, I'm not taking back your waste unless you show a receipt. Why should I?
Like so many other failed recycling schemes, this one fails at usability, dumping a shit ton of extra cognitive load on the average joe. Even people who care will be hard pressed to get it right - and most people won't care.
If there was some extra deposit money being charged (which goes to a government fund, not to the vendor), similar to how this works for beer and cola bottles, then people would be incentivized to save the receipts and bring the products back to a collection point for recycling, getting their money back.
@humanetech @strypey It's still way overcomplicated.
The only reason people like this sort of scheme, is because they want to punish businesses.
But I agree that paying people for garbage is the only way this gets fixed. Any plan suggesting otherwise is basically a plan suggesting everyone who is struggling to get by, suddenly start to care more about rubbish than they care about their own survival. Not gonna happen.
@HerraBRE @humanetech @strypey whaaat. The price for the bottle is separate. You pay more and then get money back (Pfand). I couldn't care less if it kills the business (it doesn't) if they're shitting & heating the planet.
