[CarlosFerreira]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Canuk', '
')Adjustment to the progressive income tax scale and rates could be implemented to reduce the impact on the low and fixed incomes. If the personal deduction was increased and a rate reduction at the bottom bracket was implemented it could be relatively revenue neutral while introducing necessary consumption based economic feedback.

[MrBill]

Carlos, in a social-democracy with a market economy it is the government that passes laws on behalf of its citizens that states how much a company can pollute or indeed how much waste they need to recylce. Rules and regulations properly enforced by democratically elected governments an behalf of their citizens are therefore supposed to address economic externalities. This is not a flaw in the current system. It is the way it is designed. If individual consumers that are also voters do not want to pay for the full cost of a good upfront then they have to pay for its disposal through the collective of taxes. It is up for them to decide at the ballot box. Companies can only go along with what the laws that the government decides to pass or face the penalties and other consequences of non-compliance.

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'W')e in the US are suffering now under the worst kleptocracy on the planet.

[CarlosFerreira]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'C')arlos, in a social-democracy with a market economy it is the government that passes laws on behalf of its citizens that states how much a company can pollute or indeed how much waste they need to recylce. Rules and regulations properly enforced by democratically elected governments an behalf of their citizens are therefore supposed to address economic externalities. This is not a flaw in the current system. It is the way it is designed. If individual consumers that are also voters do not want to pay for the full cost of a good upfront then they have to pay for its disposal through the collective of taxes. It is up for them to decide at the ballot box. Companies can only go along with what the laws that the government decides to pass or face the penalties and other consequences of non-compliance.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'W')e in the US are suffering now under the worst kleptocracy on the planet.

[CarlosFerreira]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'T')he magnitude of theft is overwhelming in places like China, Russia, Mexico, and virtually the entire southern hemisphere.

[Canuk]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CarlosFerreira', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Canuk', '
')Adjustment to the progressive income tax scale and rates could be implemented to reduce the impact on the low and fixed incomes. If the personal deduction was increased and a rate reduction at the bottom bracket was implemented it could be relatively revenue neutral while introducing necessary consumption based economic feedback.

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CarlosFerreira', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'T')he magnitude of theft is overwhelming in places like China, Russia, Mexico, and virtually the entire southern hemisphere.

[CarlosFerreira]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Canuk', 'I') am uncertain of how income is taxed in Portugal, in Canada and to a lesser degree in the US we have progressive tax brackets where income below a point is taxed at a certain rate and income above that point is taxed at a higher rate, and yes what you describe occurs especially among the self employed or in high cash businesses. I was trying to counter the socially regressive label that user fees get - lowering the bottom bracket tax rate would give all taxpayers a break to offset the user fees therefore it would be neutral and not as regressive.

[Canuk]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CarlosFerreira', '
')Here's a true story. I went to the meat grocer's with mom and we were discussing the fact that our family started recycling. So the meat grocer tells me he used to do it until this year, but when the municipality taxed him with a (fixed for everyone) 10€ fee for garbage collection, he got so furious he decided to just dump everything in the trash and have them recycle! People just don't really havv the incentive, I guess.

Here in Portugal, we have 2 companies in the recycling business. One's an inter-cities, run by the municipalities (essentially a state-owned enterprise) that's a massive success. The other's a private company that keeps having problems, doesn't provide a good support for the community and presents massive debts. I don't know what are the reasons for this state of affairs, but I can only hope things get better.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('neocone', '
')
The population is a Gauss curve.. the top 1% will always be persecuted by the laggards.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('neocone', '
')
The population is a Gauss curve.. the top 1% will always be persecuted by the laggards.

[CarlosFerreira]

In Portugal, glass bottles used to be about the only available packaging for drinks, either soda, glass or wine. All the bottles were returnable, and you had to the distributor (shop) a small fee when you bought the stuff. That fee was returned when you brought the bottle back, it was supposed to assure you did bring the bottle back.

Some 15 years ago, when large supermarkets boomed, there was heavy pressure to stop this. I suppose (I can't really remember, I was 12 or something back then) their argument was recycling would take care of waste, and that less energy-intensive and materials-intensive packaging would be developed. Technology... I suppose there was wide agreement among buyers who didn't want the inconvenience of carrying bottles back.

Nobody (that I remember) shouted that reusing is more efficient than recycling. Most people around here won't recycle, anyway!

Soda is nowadays mostly packaged in plastic bottles or metal cans. As for beer, wine and liquors, they're mostly packaged in glass bottles. There were a few experiments with plastic (beer) or Tetra-Pak (wine), but consumers didn't approve.

So, the result of deregulation was the maintenance of an energy-intensive and materials-intensive form of packaging, with raised costs (having to produce new bottles instead of washing old ones). I think producers got the sharp end here, by rising costs, and large distribution was the greatest winner, since they could turn their operations leaner.

I suppose you could argue that, as energy and materials extraction gets more expensive, there will be incentives to go back to reusing. In the meantime, there were years of waste and a generation has been brought up to just dump everything and expect it to be disposed of somewhere, as an externality.

Everything nowadays seems to be an externality, every player in the economic system (and that includes the State and the citizens) wants to take something out of its cost structure.

[MrBill]

In Hamburg and Munich they have gone 100% automatic in their garbage recycling separating out glass, plastic, metal and paper for further recycling. This reduces the mass of garbage to about 5% of its original size of then mostly organic waste that is dried and then burned in an incinerator to produce electricity.

At the other end of the spectrum in Garbage City in Cairo the residents are getting quite prosperous by sorting garbage collected in Cairo by hand. The high price of recycled materials makes it quite lucrative for the operators to bid for garbage collection monopolies in various Cario neighborhoods. They pay to pick-up the garbage. This has reduced considerably the air pollution in Cairo from open fires to burn garbage in local neighborhoods.

Everyone else is somewhere between the Germans and the Egyptians. The high cost of natural resources as energy becomes more expensive mean that we will likely be looking at recycling in the future as being economical in its own right versus simply from an environmental point of view. However, if we can kill two stones with one bird all the better. Interestingly enough though both are a market approach to what was considered the tragedy of the commons. One that could only be solved by government.

But just so you do not think I am too optimistic and out of touch with reality, across the sea from here in one Lebanese municipality they do not have any more room in their landfill so they just push it into the sea. The wind and waves then bring that garbage, plastic and pollutants to Cyprus and Lebanon's other neighbors. The problem in Lebanon is that they do not have a functioning government, so the provision of basic services and enforcement of laws is on a very ad hoc basis.

As citizens live amoungst the garbage they stop to notice it and then their own discipline not to pollute or litter is decreased. And as these habits both good and bad have a network effect if you see others doing it you feel it is okay to do it yourself. Here in Cyprus I routinely see Cypriots throw garbage directly into the sea even though there are garbage bins everywhere along the beach. They do not even think about it. Plastic bags are the worst, but also drink containers in the sea, etc.

As a member of Rotary International we hosted the first (annual) Environmental Fair this spring. We gave cash prizes, trophies and certificates for the best ideas. We had over 200 participants this year and distributed more than 2000 euros in prizes. Needless to say of the schools that participated 90% of them were international schools and not locals. Okay, it is a place to start. Our goal next year is to include more local schools, raise more sponsorship money, give out more cash prizes and raise awareness in the community about the importance of the environment. Am I optimistic? I am realistic, but you have to start somewhere! ; - ))

UPDATE: 21st Century to Houston. Come in Houston.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he recycled matter will be sold at a profit to companies like Wal-Mart and Lowe’s. But even that initiative has its critics.

“Picking up yard clippings isn’t radical,” Mr. Corley said. “It’s not even innovative. They just aren’t going far enough. Recycling ought to be mandatory. Send the waste police.”

And to make better use of the recycling containers it does have, the city next year will take them away from households that are not filling them and give them to ones on the waiting list. “Driving up and down the street to pick up nothing isn’t good,” said Sarah Mason, an environmental analyst for the mayor.

But city officials say the biggest barrier to recycling in Houston is cheap landfill fees. It only costs $32 to dispose of a ton of waste here, compared with $70 in the Northeast, according to the National Solid Wastes Management Association’s latest survey, in 2005.

Some reject that argument, however, citing other cities with even lower landfill fees.

“Blaming landfills is a completely flawed argument, old-fashioned thinking that is really just laziness,” said Eric Lombardi, the director of Ecocycle, the nation’s largest nonprofit recycler, in Boulder, Colo.

Mr. Lombardi’s operation claims a 60 percent recycling rate, despite landfill fees of $15 a ton — less than half of Houston’s costs. With commodity prices at a record high, he said, if recycling can be profitable “in my landlocked state without easy access to buyers like China, then it can be profitable anywhere.”

Mr. Lombardi said he envied places like Houston that had garbage to sell and ports nearby.

“Every house has to have a bin and a small trash can,” he said. “Come on, guys, it’s the 21st century. Political leadership is needed to say we’re going to change.”

[Canuk]

There is a large market for recycling the waste from the west in China and India - ship scrap yards have moved to India and electronics waste flows regularly into both. Some interesting scenes of these type of manual recycling methods are shown in this movie (there is a short trailer on the site): http://www.mongrelmedia.com/films/Manuf ... capes.html

Recycling has become the most common of the three R`s despite it actually having higher energy costs likely due to the lack of lifestyle change required and the external nature of these costs.

The problem with automatic or manual sorting is the inability to prevent mixed materials. Metals can be sorted based on density and magnetic permeability but resins are difficult to sort even when marked since there may be additives to the plastic during the process that restricts the reuse. Also, the quality of the post consumer product is affected by residues and biological contamination since most plastics are hygroscopic. Generally molding does not remove bacteria so the material reuse must usually be in non-food applications.

As to the organics - locally we recently introduced a "green bin" program separating organic (food, paper bits, garden waste, even meat & bones) matter from the waste stream to be composted in an industrial style composting facility using some of the compost material as fuel for accelerating the process. Unfortunately this is being funded locally on the property tax base due to the lack of future landfill space instead of funded by the consumer as a consumptive tax.

[threadbear]

Mr.Bill--I wasn't serious.

[CarlosFerreira]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Canuk', '
')As to the organics - locally we recently introduced a "green bin" program separating organic (food, paper bits, garden waste, even meat & bones) matter from the waste stream to be composted in an industrial style composting facility using some of the compost material as fuel for accelerating the process. Unfortunately this is being funded locally on the property tax base due to the lack of future landfill space instead of funded by the consumer as a consumptive tax.

[Canuk]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CarlosFerreira', '
')I'm going to research some numbers of recycled waste per citizen in Portugal, Canada and Germany. That might compare well with the corruption map. Might even come to the whole concept of environment destruction=corruption.

[phaster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'I')f someone knows of a free market, tell me about it. I'd like to go see one in action sometime.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'M')r.Bill--I wasn't serious.