Slashdot Mirror
Recycle Fee For Each PC?
UncleJosh writes: "The New York Times (free reg rq'd) has a story about a $25-30 fee to be added to the price of a new PC to cover the cost of recycling it. Sort of like a bottle deposit, but you don't get the money back." What if I just want to buy the case?
Why? Because even if you believe in a free market, as I do, you should recongnize that external costs (and pollution is a perfect example of an external cost) distorts the efficient operation of the markets. Given that PC disposal generates an external cost because of the problems with the toxic materials and what not, we need to come up with an efficient way to internalize the associated costs.
Now, it's true that from a market effieciency position, the best way it to charge people at disposal time, ie you pay your $25 bucks when you throw the computer away. This way, only those who dispose of PC's pay the price... those of use (present company included) who like to keep their old PC's for tinkering purposes wouldn't have to pay the disposal costs that they never incur. But, as others have pointed out, such a system is easy to circumvent and impossible to efficiently enforce. Thus, charging people to drop off computers at a recycling center is a bad idea.
What does us leave us with? Well, we could institute a recycling program funded in a way that there is no cost to drop off a PC. This is probably the best way, given the impossiblity of enforcing a pay-as-you dispose system. But setting up a system is going to cost money, so who should pay?
One way is by a general tax, so everyone in society pays for the cost of PC disposal. But, from a libertarian perspective, charing someone who never uses PCs so that those that do can get rid of them in an environmentally friendly way is very, very wrong. Let's reject this idea.
Another way to fund a recycling program is to implement an upfront charge on those who buy PC's, so the cost of such a system is born by those who use drive the purchase of computers (and thus the disposal of computers). Now, there is some unfairness here, as noted before, in that those who don't throw the PC away still bear the cost. But, we've determined that a pay-as-you-throw-it-away system won't work, so we have to come up with the next best solution. And I think a solution such as the one presented in this story is just the next best solution we need.
Remember, fellow libertarians: free markets require market efficiency, which means minimizing external costs. When you identify an external cost, devise the best mechanism you can to internalize it. Don't automatically say, aw, that's a new tax, it must be bad, so lets reject the idea. Consider what it's trying to do (and what it will actually end up doing), and then decide if it's right or wrong