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Comment by Accujack | Hacker News Reader

There's no for-profit motive to justify recycling of much, that's true. However, recycling can still work well if there's money built in to the price of items for recycling what they're made of.

In other words, a surcharge built into the cost of e.g. a flatscreen monitor for recycling is held in escrow during the device's lifetime. When it's end of life, the company that recycles it can claim that charge as part of its fee for ensuring the materials are not improperly disposed of.

This sort of system would also have the benefit of encouraging purchase of more recyclable items by making the less recyclable ones more expensive.

Of course, there are a thousand ways this system could be subverted... and the real problem in the US is a corrupt government that won't create laws to stop export of e-waste.

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This is exactly it. There's no reason we need to be held hostage to China's lack of environmental concern.

When a device is imported from China or manufactured domestically, a fee is tacked on that includes the price of recycling processing. Congress just has to pass a law, period.

Then recycling companies demonstrate responsible recycling and recover the fees. Fees are set per-product in order to ensure they are ultimately profitable.

Resulting pure compounds, proven to not require further recycling processing bad for the environment, can then be re-exported to China for use in manufacturing at market rates.

But as you say, it depends on Congress and on actual regulation and inspections/audits with teeth and meaningful penalties. To actually work, auditable photographic/video evidence of the entire workflow accounting for every single shipment would be a first step. But Congress depends on voters, so it's really up to us to force politicians to campaign on it.

So, your suggestion is that the US consumer has to pay a "tacked-on fee" when they purchase a recyclable product. That fee, presumably, is held by the US government. In other words, it's a sales tax.

When the consumer wants to get rid of the product, they can just throw it out and send it to a landfill. If they do, the fee is kept by the government.

Or, the consumer can get the product to a recycling company, somehow. The recycling company can then request the fee amount from the government. This would require tracking the product's UPC and proof of the # of items recycled, or individual serial numbers. (The tracking info, from sale to disposal, could be sold to marketers for additional revenue. For extra value, attach the info to the consumer for targeted advertising.)

Finally, the recycling company, after getting the sales tax money from the consumer and selling the consumer's data for targeted marketing, can now sell the recycled components back to the manufacturing companies. None of the proceeds make their way back to the consumer, of course.

I don't see any economic benefit for consumers here; in fact the cost burden is mostly on them. That suggests Congress would probably love the idea.

Everything you mentioned as possible public policy is done for the benefit of the environment and the people who live in it, not shortsighted consumers.

You’re not paying for it because it’s good for you, but because it harms others.

Well people act in their own self interest, so how do you propose that people go about implementing to encourage the lazy consume to take part?

GP makes a very valid point, and I don't know why they are being downvoted. It's basic game theory.

Maybe if the fee was given back to the consumer or split between them it might work. Like how bottle deposits used to work.

> so how do you propose that people go about implementing to encourage the lazy consume to take part?

Government regulation. In one of the states I reside in, electronics recycling is mandatory (and collection points, numerous and easily available). E-waste is prohibited from entering the traditional landfill waste stream, and there are fines (economic incentives!) for doing so. How else would you address lazy or selfish humans? It's why we have laws prohibiting littering, for example.

We could go further of course; perhaps partner with USPS so that collection could even happen at the curb daily (similar to Stitchfix's arrangement with USPS leveraging their processing stream for logistics). Even if you make it incredibly simple, some people will still complain. C'est la vie.

I already pay to recycle.

How has my clearly irrational behavior somehow defeated your ironclad game theory logic?

The chink in their Extremely Logical armor isn't in the idea that people act in their own self interest, it's in the shallow definition of self of that is implied.

I want my planet to do well.

If recycling is profitable, then recycling companies will go out of their ways to get recycleable stuff in their hands. So they will go to the consumer.

And waste disposal costs money, so consumer should have economic incentive to recycle instead of throwing everything in the bin.

> That suggests Congress would probably love the idea.

If that were true the law would already be in place.

The economic benefit for consumers is not destroying the ability of the planet to sustain life.

> In other words, a surcharge built into the cost of e.g. a flatscreen monitor for recycling is held in escrow during the device's lifetime. When it's end of life, the company that recycles it can claim that charge as part of its fee for ensuring the materials are not improperly disposed of.

Something similar is done in Italy by CONAI [1], a private-but-public organization that collects small fees for each piece of packaging that the members (basically all factories) produce. This cost is carried on until the good is sold and the recycling facilities can claim it back. [2]

The mount of money per packaging is minuscule (I think in the order of a tenth of a Euro cent per m^2 cardboard, for example), but it has been enough to create an incentive to kick-start the whole recycling industry. The result: 88% recycling country-wide. [2]

[1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consorzio_nazionale_imballaggi [2] http://www.comieco.org/faq/

They do this with paint now. 75 cents surcharge on a gallon, which in turn allows you to bring back partials you will never use / have gone bad / etc 'free of charge'.

California has electronic waste recycling fees at time of purchase for televisions, monitors, laptops, and tablets. The questions is given that we are paying this fee, are they properly recycling those devices?

This is called a "Pigouvian tax" or "externality tax" and a common example is a tax on fuel:

"In the United States, the federal gas tax was $0.183 per gallon in 2019... The revenue goes into the federal Highway Trust Fund to pay for roadway maintenance."

https://www.thebalance.com/pigouvian-tax-definition-and-exam...

There's no way this would work practically. For one thing: an escrow system?! Who's going to pay for that? Secondly no politician is going to create a bill which makes electronics far more expensive. That's not corruption, it's simply not wanting to piss off your constituents.

Something like this is already in use in Finland. AFAIK it's at least for electronics, cars, car tires, and plastics. The manufacturers/importers are responsible for handling their recycling costs and so they put the cost into the product. Products are more expensive but they are then free to recycle.

Have you ever heard of deposits on soda bottles?

It's quite doable.

yeah let's keep taxing ourselves while other nations pollute, that will teach them.

There is no way the CCP is going to legislate that into reality. There is no way the US Congress is going to further handicap American industry with what then amounts to another subsidy to China. It's not a solution. Nor is barring e-waste exports a solution. That material will end up in landfill. Terrible idea.

What is a solution then?

An extra fee on imported goods isn't a subsidy, it's a tarrif.

>There is no way the CCP is going to legislate that into reality.

Not the CCP, the US government. That's why I mentioned the corruption of it being a problem.

E-waste from the US should be kept in the US where we can ensure it's recycled properly, not shipped overseas to make a quick buck.

China's lack of regulation and pollution is another problem entirely.

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