TreeHugger has been on a years-long jeremiad against single-use plastics and IKEA just gave them a chance to cheer. IKEA Assembles a Future Without Plastic Packaging.
But as it always seems to be on the Left, they really tore IKEA for being a green-washer. But while trying to prop them up, the author decided to praise two States not knowing that he’s an economic fool – and those Legislators wanted to appear to be doing something but ended up greenwashing themselves:
Some U.S. states have therefore decided to give plastic-addicted corporations a push toward sustainable packaging. Two states, in particular: Maine and Oregon, both of which have enacted first-of-their-kind laws that require makers of consumer packaging to pay for the recycling and disposal of their products.
“The Maine and Oregon laws are the latest applications of a concept called extended producer responsibility, or EPR,” authors Jessica Heiges and Kate O’Neill—researchers who study waste and ways to reduce it—explain in an article for The Conversation. “Swedish academic Thomas Lindhqvist framed this idea in 1990 as a strategy to decrease products’ environmental impacts by making manufacturers responsible for the goods’ entire life cycles.”
This is akin to long time US Senators who decry that big companies aren’t paying taxes (assuredly, they are) who have been taking part in crafting the laws that companies are merely following. Those legislators NEVER blame themselves but excoriate those companies that are simply playing by those laws. Here, however, those Maine and Oregon legislators show their ignorance – and proud of it.
What I DIDN’T expect is that NONE of the commenters picked up on how stupid that “economic fact” that customers would never pay that fee – just the packaging companies:
Two states, in particular: Maine and Oregon, both of which have enacted first-of-their-kind laws that require makers of consumer packaging to pay for the recycling and disposal of their products.
Morons.
No, the companies WON’T be paying for it and ANYONE that has either owned or managed a company knows better. It’s the Legislators and Activists that are deluding themselves if they think they will.
Whatever cost is ginned up by Government (like taxes), it will be simply be accounted for as a “cost of doing business” and will be added, either immediately or over time, to the cost of goods that makes up a final price.
People, this is simply basic finances. The people who pay are the actual consumers. Anyone saying otherwise is either stupid or part of the con themselves.
Who pays the cost of Government? Consumers
Who pays for the cost of Capitalism (or any other economic system)? Consumers.Be assured that the Mainiacs (my Mom was born in ME and called herself and her siblings that) and Oregonians WILL pay that cost foisted on them by their Legislators.
Well, elect con artists as Legislators, get con artist bills bilking your wallets.
As I said – morons.
I see this all too often when the Activists and aligned Legislators think they’ve pulled one over on manufacturers. Instead, it’s the poor end users, the final consumers, that will pay that price.