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Subject: 
Re: Brad - TLC needs to minimize packaging
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 29 Dec 1999 22:57:51 GMT
Viewed: 
630 times
  
   Sorry for so many posts on this boring subject, but...
Larry Pieniazek wrote in message ...
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:

As far as government regulation of packaging goes, I think that so long
as landfills are publicly financed, the government has an interest in
reducing waste. Of course this should be handled by charging a fee per
bag of trash (with lower, zero, or negative fees for properly cleaned
and sorted recycleables, assuming there is a market for said
recycleables). If the trash fees really represented the true cost of
waste disposal (which I suspect would shock us if we paid per bag of
trash), consumers would quickly demand a level of packaging which would
minimize waste (whether it be no packaging at all, or recycleable
packaging).

Hear hear. Trash fees DON'T cover costs because the government runs most
landfills, and regulates the rest. That regulation, by imposing standards
instead of using strict negligence, allows landfill operators to meet the
standards (of leachate, etc) but ignore the actual cleanup costs, • transferring
them to the future.

   I think if this particular industry (and nearly any other, for that
matter) were privatized, the actual costs would go down considerably,
possibly being even cheaper for the consumer than the current fees (and no
debt for the future).  The labor costs alone would decrease significantly
enough to make the current consumer fees pay for the operation entirely, and
the efficiency to do all the government imposed BS (proper disposal) would
increase simultaneously.  My opposition, if not apparent, is that although
current consumer spending on trash doesn't actually cover the costs incurred
by its disposal (and is therefore another example of government doing things
wrong and backasswards), if that racket were deregulated, the fees would be
the same or lower and all the costs would be covered.  It would be a
profitable private enterprise, instead of an unprofitable joke of an
enterprise.

Of course if we had a true Liberatopia, most of these problems wouldn't
exist, because all the costs and benefits would be properly balanced,
instead of most of the costs being hidden.

Now you're talkin! It still wouldn't be perfect, though... remember there • is no
perfect society. Only better or worse than now (or the same but different).



--
   Have fun!
   John
The Legos you've been dreaming of...
http://www114.pair.com/ig88/lego
my weird Lego site:
http://www114.pair.com/ig88/

"Censorship is yet another tool in the dumbing-down of America
by a power structure that relies on a populace too lazy or ignorant
to think independently." -Vanessa McGrady



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Brad - TLC needs to minimize packaging
 
(...) Hear hear. Trash fees DON'T cover costs because the government runs most landfills, and regulates the rest. That regulation, by imposing standards instead of using strict negligence, allows landfill operators to meet the standards (of (...) (25 years ago, 29-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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