Sunday, April 22, 2012
Earth Day Analysis: How Waste Hurts the Economy http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/04/22/earth-day-analysis-how-waste-hurts-the-economy/
This article addresses the problem with waste, and what we should think about in the future. Every American on average produce more than 7 pounds of trash per day ,compare to just over 2 pounds per day by Japan. It's not about running out space for the garbage, but it's about how much resources we are wasting every year. I think this can be considered a market failure, and it requires effort and changes not just from the people, but the government as well.
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4 comments:
I completely agree that the world waste problem is an issue that the government should be involved in daily. Yes they have made some decisions to incentify the process however, this still has not made full swing.
I was not aware that we produced so much trash by ourselves. I suppose the more I think about it that is an accurate amount in a given day between food we buy in boxes and the rest that we do not eat. It certainly adds up and definitely something we should consider more seriously.
I'm not exactly sure what government would do to prevent the problem in total- the excess in waste seems to come from cheap and readily available resources. I suppose some programs- such as paying coins for bottle collections do help the rate of collections, but waste in these states (Maine, Michigan, California, etc.) are still plentiful. One of the problems mentioned was that of spoilt milk, and I don't have any idea how government would address that. Perhaps as resources grow more scarce and technology continues to improve, less will be wasted in a joint effort from the supply side and consumer consumption.
It's horrifying just how much we waste, particularly when looking at how many people are struggling worldwide. In addition all of the individualized packaging is awful for the environment and is often very unnecessary, just adding to waste.
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