If so, then okay. The idea is that single use plastic is used because plastic is so damn cheap. From what I understand, the precursor is basically a waste product from oil extraction. But add a small tax and it breaks the model.
A single cheap fork is less than US$0.01 on a commercial restaurant website. For many restaurants, that is easier to deal with than washing dishes. But let’s tack on a $0.05 tax per single use item or $0.50 single use tax. Pass it directly on to the customer on the check.
That puts single use more on an equal footing with restaurants that are reusing dishes. Single use plastic doesn’t have its true cost built in. A tax can do that in a transparent way.
The point is to increase the cost of the plastics to the point that alternatives start to actually be competitive. And really, we’re just making them actually pay for some of the externalities they’re getting a free ride on.
If you use government to increase the cost of a thing to the point alternatives become cheaper, most businesses are going to switch. They aren’t sticking with plastics out of ideology or anything… it’s just cheap. And it shouldn’t be.
We all pay for it anyway via the negative impacts. It should be the consumers buying the thing that pay for it. Why should society at large be paying for the negative impacts of a product not everyone is buying? Makes no sense. If your product is causing a big environmental impact, that needs to be paid for by the company making the product and the consumers buying it.
They’ll just pass all the additional costs (plus a little extra profit because why not) onto the consumer
If so, then okay. The idea is that single use plastic is used because plastic is so damn cheap. From what I understand, the precursor is basically a waste product from oil extraction. But add a small tax and it breaks the model.
A single cheap fork is less than US$0.01 on a commercial restaurant website. For many restaurants, that is easier to deal with than washing dishes. But let’s tack on a $0.05 tax per single use item or $0.50 single use tax. Pass it directly on to the customer on the check.
That puts single use more on an equal footing with restaurants that are reusing dishes. Single use plastic doesn’t have its true cost built in. A tax can do that in a transparent way.
The point is to increase the cost of the plastics to the point that alternatives start to actually be competitive. And really, we’re just making them actually pay for some of the externalities they’re getting a free ride on.
If you use government to increase the cost of a thing to the point alternatives become cheaper, most businesses are going to switch. They aren’t sticking with plastics out of ideology or anything… it’s just cheap. And it shouldn’t be.
But it wouldn’t be making them pay for that because they would pass that cost onto the consumer as they always do.
And yeah, if they have to, they switch. To a more expensive material. And guess who pays for that?
We all pay for it anyway via the negative impacts. It should be the consumers buying the thing that pay for it. Why should society at large be paying for the negative impacts of a product not everyone is buying? Makes no sense. If your product is causing a big environmental impact, that needs to be paid for by the company making the product and the consumers buying it.
Literally happened in the netherlands