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I was brushing my teeth yesterday with the amazing $6.95 Crest electric toothbrush. It’s great – it’s simple, and cheap, and I know the story of the clever entrepreneurs who designed it and sold their company for $400m to P&G.
I was thinking about how I get a new one every few months, instead of just paying $99, or much more, for a great reliable 5-year version. The 5-year version would have rechargeable batteries, a nice inductive charger, a nice stand, and extra brushes. The $6.95 one has none of those, and I throw it out for a new one fairly often. Economically, I come out ahead, never having to lay out $99+ up front and I can have one in more than one bathroom, and one in my luggage for travel, etc. But then I realized I’m throwing it out so often, filling up the earth with the junk, and using up precious materials on the planet. But I do it because it’s convenient, and because it’s cheap.
It’s quite selfish, however. It’s cheaper for me, but for the planet? This example plays itself out in millions of our daily items – not just all of our plastic disposables, cups, bags, but also all of our computers, tires, and really everything. Since there is no charge for throwing anything away, most of the incentive to make something last a long time is offset by the super low upfront cost.
I can’t think of any other way to solve this other than to have a “disposal tax” that is added into the purchase price of everything based on it’s life, element usage, and disposal cost. Unless there is a clear price signal that this matters, I think we will continue to descend into a low up-front cost, higher disposal-rate society. I think there are lots of challenges here, but I think this is very important. I’d love to hear thoughts to the contrary, and either why this wouldn’t work, or why this isn’t necessary.
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Bill
I think about this sort of thing all the time. I agree w/ Saul Griffiths who said we should be buying “heirloom products” that we keep forever and pass down to our kids.
I think disposal fees or take-back programs need to be put in place, either at retailers or stand-alone businesses. But we’re dealing w/ huge cultural barriers — in my town, there is fierce opposition to the simplest “pay as you throw” garbage disposal program.
In a perfectly efficient world (politically that is) the “disposal tax” would be used for appropriate related funding and is a great idea. Unfortunalely, like every other good intentioned tax, it gets spent on pork and bureaucracy (unfortunately, it is a self selected sample of people who get in the position to even be in charge of such monies..as an honest person would never be in bed with enough companies/people to get elected anymore).
So, capital gets siphoned off from the real economy and “monetary units” slosh around and produce crap and then the government prints more. Then, things of value like food, health insurance, business overhead become too expensive as they were not produced in enough abundance to keep up with the monetary units floating around..(gosh how did this rant turn into the perils of a fiat currency)
Hi Bill,
Great blog. Got drawn to it by a tweet you made rerouted through AIDG.
Two points. First regarding this, in some countries there is already a disposal charge on electronics such as in Ireland. We actually pay an extra charge when we buy the product to offset the effects of dumping it. This goes for everything from phones and laptops to toasters. This is already a nice idea as it does make you think about how temporary everything we consume is and how it can be stretched. I think we can go a step further from there and considering there are increasingly companies applying criteria for rating packaging (ironically Wal Mart now do this), why not associate said ratings with an equivalent weighted charge? It’s one way of rewarding someone for choosing the 5 year toothbrush.
Second with regard to your tweet about allowing people in developing nations to earn money remotely. I would really like to know more as having been to Haiti several times on aid work, I have often considered how to help increase their market for locally made crafts. Problem is always infrastructure. No postal system, no good roads and all that before the quake hit. Even though the one thing the haitians do have is a (relatively) great mobile network and sporadic satellite internet. Perhaps you’re aiming for areas with slightly better infrastructure. If you have a link please let me know.