Internalising the Costs of Waste Management
Paying for the ecologically wise disposal of products at end-of-life, is the responsibility of the people who make and sell them.
I recently noticed an opinion piece with the provocative title ‘Recycling Has Always Been a Scam’, written by fellow kiwi radical Martin ‘Bomber’ Bradbury. While I agree with the deeper political-economic point Bomber is trying to make, I just want to sound a note of caution about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Yes, recycling a thing is no substitute for not making it in the first place, if it's avoidable (yes, I'm looking at you disposable plastic bags).
Yes, making products genuinely multi-use or compostable is better than trying to recycle huge volumes of disposable stuff.
Yes, the recycling systems we have, although they've come a long way in Aotearoa, are still flawed and inadequate. As anyone who’s genuinely tried to hold zerowaste events can tell you.
But the concept of recycling; reclaiming materials from end-of-life products to make new ones, instead of burying or burning them? That’s most definitely not a scam. If we are to continue manufacturing things that can't be safely eaten or composted, we must have functional systems for reclaiming the materials in those products, when they can no longer be repaired or repurposed.
Where I agree with Bomber (and others like Adam Ruins Everything who've covered this topic) is that the responsibility for ecologically wise disposal should *not* lie with the people who end up with products at their end-of-life. People who are likely to be low income, and therefore buying lower quality products, or repairing and repurposing things cast off by wealthier people who can afford to buy new ones instead. Neither should that cost fall on local councils, as much of it does right now.
The people who ran the E-Day to collect e-waste in Aotearoa from 2007-2010 proposed a “product stewardship” model. Where the price of recycling electronic products is paid by its manufacturers and retailers, who may or may not be able to pass it on to the first owner as part of the purchase price. To do that, we could charge a levy on any product when it comes into the country (or is bought from the manufacturer if made here) and use that to fund the costs of recycling that product effectively. Or we could oblige retailers to accept returns of product they sell when they’re no longer useful, so they have to organise and pay for recycling them.
I agree with this, and I see no reason why it applies only to electronics. Would the Warehouse and all those $2 shops be full of designer landfill if the people selling it had to add the full cost of end-of-life disposal to the purchase price (‘internalised’ it), or absorb it themselves? Maybe goods designed to be more durable, or easier to repair and recycle, could end up being more profitable, and we’d have a whole lot less waste to recycle, bury, or burn.
We casually talk about throwing things “away” when we’re done with them, but there is no “away”. If we don’t want to be eating, swimming in or breathing the remains of old landfills and rubbish incinerators for generations to come, we have to find ways of “closing the loop”. But don’t believe the hype; the companies that profit from making waste are responsible for managing it, not their customers, and we need robust regulations that make sure they do.
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"Recycle Reduce Reuse" by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.