environment

California probes 'Big Oil' over plastic pollution

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Plastic and the oil industry- going hand in hand in destroying our environment and our health for the benefit of a privileged few.

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It is only in the last few years that we have become aware of the health problem posed by plastics. If our knowledge of the problem is only recent, how could the oil companies have been intentionally hurting our health during the time prior to awareness of the problem?

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Yeah, this will get people to stop fleeing California’s rampant crime, homelessness, and massive taxes.

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There is no reason why recycling should be economic. Dealing with waste, like other public services, rarely is.

Most plastics can be recycled (or should be), but governments are too lazy to regulate plastic types and too tight to treat the recycling industry as the public service it should be. Instead they expect the private sector to do it. Global figures for recycling are pointless. Well regulated nations have high rates. 'Developing' nations have tiny rates. That won't change, unless California starts donating recycling kit to poor nations.

If California wants to go plastic free, go for it. Close down Silicon Valley (and most other industry and retail), hand back your phones, your laptops, your cars, your medical equipment and almost everything else you possess, as it all has plastic in it, and return to the pre-Bakelite age. Just don't switch to wood, as we need those trees. Mud bricks will do you for all future building projects in California and citizens can spend the rest of their lives meditating on their purity, eating government rations and singing songs. Everything else will require plastics at some point. Oh, and no air con either. Enjoy that Californian sun.

Everything we do has an impact on the environment, and net zero is no more possible than Covid zero.

I wonder if anyone in the Bronze Age got stressed over the amount of bronze bits that were being dumped.

-destroying our environment and our health

Not having plastics would kill far more people than microplastics, which may be largely benign. Plastics revolutionised hygiene, medicine, transport and food safety.

-privileged few.

Plastics democratised stuff. Pre-plastic, only the rich had much stuff. Plastic made it possible for us all to have stuff and for society to develop.

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Yeah, this will get people to stop fleeing California’s rampant crime, homelessness, and massive taxes.

Let's unpack this. The tax burden as a percentage of income in California is mid pack among US states, differing from the national mean by less than 1%. Sales taxes look higher than most but unlike most states California only applies sales taxes to goods. Other states tax services, labor, even the rent you pay (Florida for example). The income tax has the highest marginal rates, but only the very wealthy pay those rates. The great majority of wage earners pay low income taxes due to the graduated nature of the state's income tax. Until I had rental properties I never paid more than 3% of my income to the state in the form of income tax.

Property taxes in California are the lowest in the US. A friend of mine just moved to Texas and was bragging about his taxes. His new home in Texas cost as much as my new home in California, but his property tax bill is greater than my property and income taxes combined. California taxes property at 1% of assessed value but because of Prop 13 that assessed value can only rise a maximum of 2% per year regardless of how rapidly the market value rises. The net effect is that California taxes property at about 0.7% of market value. My friend now in Texas pays 2.5% of the market value of his property and there is no ceiling on tax increases. Lucky him (ha !).

California's rate of death by firearms per 100,000 population is seventh lowest in the US. Other violent crime statistics are similarly low by national standards. Arizona right next to California has more than double the rate of deaths by firearm. California has by far the largest population of the 50 states so the raw numbers of crimes look large, but in proportion to that huge population the actual crime rates are below national averages.

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There is no reason why recycling should be economic. Dealing with waste, like other public services, rarely is.

Most plastics can be recycled (or should be), but governments are too lazy to regulate plastic types and too tight to treat the recycling industry as the public service it should be.

You're missing something about human nature that is very important. Sure governments can pass laws that force companies and individuals to do or not do things. Good luck getting compliance. No company, no business owner is going to willingly loose money just because the government orders them to do something that is costly. Most will simply ignore such laws or find ways to get around them. You will also quickly build political opposition to such regulations. But if you give individuals and firms and economic incentive to do something beneficial you don't need to use punishment to achieve the desired behavior. Us economists are always looking for ways to create markets for things that otherwise become pollutants or waste. If a way can be found to make a waste stream valuable it quickly stops being a waste stream and instead one firm's waste becomes another firms valuable input commodity they are willing to pay for. That is, to me, the most desired end goal.

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Not having plastics would kill far more people than microplastics, which may be largely benign.

Have you seen the ugly deaths sea birds die in the Pacific, their stomachs filled with plastic waste they cannot digest but that makes them feel full even as they starve to death? The little plastic pellets called "nurdles" find their way into everything. They kill sea life, they kill birds and now we find plastic in our own bodies.

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