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Survey finds that 60 firms are responsible for half of world’s plastic pollution
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that an externality tax to capture the actual cost of single-use plastics would do a lot to reduce their use without distorting markets and causing unintended side effects while likely being more effective than blanket bans.
That and an indulgence tax does not solve the problem. The intention is not to get more money from taxes, or to lower the pores access to normal goods, it’s decentivise its use. And by definition the amount you would have to tax to achieve this has to be so much that it destabilizes the market. Thats the point.
Okay, so imagine you just ban plastic soda bottles. Now plastic bottles cannot be used in any circumstances, no matter how genuinely warranted, even if a user is willing to pay all costs to ensure its environmental impacts are offset. Also, all soda is now significantly more expensive, so "the poors" still have less access to it.
Potentially, yes. The entire point is that these artificial low prices are only possible because the negative externalities are being inflicted on other people in the form of pollution. By actually factoring this impact into the cost of the good, its true cost emerges and the market will settle into whatever the equilibrium is. If the only thing enabling mass access to cheap soda is a ton of pollution, then you either accept mass pollution or you lose the mass access to cheap soda. There's not really any way around that fundamental trade-off.
Not potentially, the market MUST be disruputed. If the market is not disrupted, the same goods are being bought, if the same goods are being bought then the same trash is created. Upsetting the market is the whole point.
Putting an indulgence tax on plastic may help stop the poor from contributing to the pollution problem, but unless the cost is prohibitively expensive for the majority it’s not going to work. Also you are not factoring that the use of the plastic can be how it’s regulated. I do not envision it being outright banned from all applications. Just all the single use applications. And i would also posit that some single use applications could be changed to a reusable use without reforging the container. It is being done else where and soon we won’t have a choice but to comply anyway. We are just talking about how dystopian that time will be at this point.
So, you want to regulate the use of plastic via an indulgence tax. But instead of charging the corporation, you want to add an additional tax to every single individual transaction? Or do you want to tax the corporation once and have the cost of the product go up. The end result is the same, except one is more efficient.
The spot where you charge it really doesn't matter much except to the accountants; it'll always just be factored into the price of the product. There's no real difference between the company increasing the price by ten cents or a ten cent tax being levied at the register.
I really wouldn't call it an indulgence tax though. There are plenty of uses for single-use plastics that aren't sodas or indulgences.
That and an indulgence tax does not solve the problem. The intention is not to get more money from taxes, or to lower the pores access to normal goods, it’s decentivise its use. And by definition the amount you would have to tax to achieve this has to be so much that it destabilizes the market. Thats the point.