Frog Design experiment in source reduction
Frog Design employees are conducting an experiment where they will carry with them all trash that they create (or which, by buying, they have sanctioned the creation of) for a two-week period. Participants are allowed to recycle or compost.
It’s a good experiment, causing one partipant to muse about what it would be like if the cost of eventual disposal were borne by the consumer.
Imagine it costs $100 a pound to dispose of garbage. As a result when you purchase an item in a store, your decision making process now factors in the cost of disposal, of the product itself and/ or the packaging, before you purchase. We need a push/ accelerator/ catalyst to expedite the emergence of creative thinking & solutions to the garbage problem. Money will do that.
Municpal solid waste is a good case to use in discussing market liberalization. If govenment no longer collected waste, there’d be a lot less of it. At the same time, there would likely be a lot more burning of it, or dumping it in the ocean, or creating rotting piles of it in the street.
