Environmental crunch worse than thought

Posted on March 16, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste News

Environmental crunch worse than thought | Herald Sun.

“The report, OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, reissued appeals for a change in policy.

Pollution should be made more expensive, such as by scrapping environmentally-damaging subsidies for fossil fuels, it said.

And natural assets should carry a monetary value that is factored into pricing, so that their true worth is appreciated.

“Progress on an incremental, piecemeal, business-as-usual basis in the coming decades will not be enough,” it said.”

Pollution includes the accumulation of plastic waste and health damage that is doing us all.  Product pricing needs to have a disposal fee built into to to allow its recovery for recycling or proper disposal.  We need to learn the cost of an item is not the cost to manufacture it, but it is the manufacture cost PLUS the disposal costs.  Many packaging materials used to day have large disposal costs compared to their manufacture cost and once those are incorporated into the pricing model, those items will loose appeal to be used and more appropriate materials will be used.