Here's a cool article on biodegradable plastics.
Yay for biodegradable!
They can already make them out of plants and bacteria, but unfortunately, they're two to ten times more expensive than traditional plastic.
Also, the article doesn't say this, but one additional problem with subsituting plant based products for petroleum based products is that it crowds out land currently used for agricultural use. This pushes up the cost of food, which makes life harder for the world's poor. This is already happening as governments push for (and subsidize)the increased use of biofuels like ethanol.
(There are never any easy answers for this stuff.)
The article does make an interesting point that consumers don't currently bear the full cost of the plastic they use. Or, at least, they don't see it. The long term costs of dealing with non-biodegradable plastic are either unknown, or hidden away in local taxes where they aren't identified as such, or else passed on to future generations. Therefore consumers can't "rationally" compare the costs of petroleum plastic bags vs. biodegradable plastic bags when choosing in the market. Is that a good argument for government intervention to shape consumer behavior (through subsidies to bioplastic producers, or a tax on petroleum plastics perhaps)? And then once consumers (are forced to) use them, economies of scale would kick in and lower the price anyway?
The free market guy in me is very skeptical of that kind of thing. On the other hand, I think the free market ethos doesn't always apply when there are environmental effects on third parties to consider (externalities, as the economists, of which I am not one, like to say). Burying our grandchildren in plastic is a hell of an externality.
(But then, so is bidding food away from third world families. Is the West morally obligated to subsidize the world's poor to prevent them from bearing the burden of our own environmental cleanup? A burden on those least able to shoulder it? Well, great. Now I sound like a pinko commie. But to put it mildly, I am skeptical of wealth transfers as well. Really very way skeptical.)
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3 comments:
Sigh. You're always thinking of the the third world people, and I don't ever even consider them until you bring them up. They're awfully depressing, aren't they?
I know! Is it too much to ask for some easy answers?
(Also, I like readily identifiable villains. Just like in the movies!)
You know that the problem is? Entropy. It we didn't have to spend more than we get out, there would be no waste. I think we could all be pretty happy about that. Hell, even the Carnot engine is, what, 60% efficient? I hate nature.
But I agree. Free market is great but not at the expense of the environment. I don't think there is any competative impetus to be environmental sound and that's where the government has to step in (and find new ways to screw things up). Or rather, the free market wouldn't kick in until it's too late. Hey, that's kind of what's happening with oil, right? The prices are going up now that we've put ourselves in a nasty little corner?
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