Re: [GreenYes] Technology and Recycling's Future

[Helen Spiegelman <hspie@telus.net>]

Two cents:

I think Peter's right. A key risk to recyclers exists because of the gap
between them and the decision-makers in product/package design. No sooner
does the recycler invest in equipment to handle widget X than the
producer of widget X introduces a new-and-improved widget X' that the
equipment can't handle. If Widget X, Inc. were responsible
for recycling as well as producing its widgets, they might go for
automated recycling equipment -- or not -- but you can be sure there
would be good communication between the design-production dept and the
recycling dept. This is, as I understand it, the gap that Peter and PRP
are trying to fill with plastics, right Peter? This is why more and more
of us are trying to get producers engaged in recycling and believe that
in the next phase recyclers will be suppliers to producers, rather than
to municipalities and an adjunct to the waste industry, which is the
current situation, more often than not. 

Peter, do you have any insights into how we can go about getting landfill
pricing right? Are you thinking of Pigovian taxes that would raise the
price, leveling the playing field with recycling? Seems to me that is a
necessary but not sufficient condition. If it is a tax/surcharge that
will level the price upwards, what will happen to the $$ collected? We
need to be thinking about how those $$ would be deployed in an
economically efficient way. Do you have any ideas?

At 05:40 PM 02/25/2002 -0600, Peter Anderson wrote:
>     That's why we
> have to concentrate all of our fire power are getting
> landfill pricing corrected...