This is a fair and valid view of looking at things. Though the trick is to not get too heavy handed. At what point does regulation become too stifling ?
The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much innovation.
One way to approach this would be to put more responsibilities on large established companies and less on smaller companies. But then the problem is that larger companies will want to arbitrage this somehow by indirectly "owning" these smaller companies with less environmental responsibilities.
This area is far more complex than we think it is.
Also what do we do about totally new materials that are thought to be benign when introduced but then are proved to have harmful effects many years later. Does the company that introduced them now have huge open ended costs and now go bankrupt ?
The solution is as always in the middle ground. Society as a whole bears some cost of cleanup (a kind of insurance policy for all companies) and companies bear some of costs.
Here in Norway, electrical and electronic (EE) goods are taxed extra and that money goes to recycling and cleanup[1].
Importers and producers are required to be a member of a approved company handling returns, like RENAS[2].
Shops selling EE goods are required to accept returned EE goods from individuals of the type they sell. So if you sell fridges you have to take my old fridge and handle it in accordance with the rules.
Seems to work better than nothing, though how well I don't know. As with all such regulations there's money to be made by skipping steps, and some do[3].
This is a good design. The company that manufactures the product does not need to be necessarily responsible for the cleanup. The cleanup is done by another company and the costs are added on customer checkout. But this is open to abuse as you mentioned -- some companies may take short cuts or the cleanup companies may become an oligopoly and charge unreasonable prices that add a lot of cost to the products.
Also, what happens if you order a product online from another company in a different country ? Does Norway still get to add tax for cleanup on these imported goods ? I would guess that this would be a powerful incentive for customers to skirt these regulations for lower prices.
> Does Norway still get to add tax for cleanup on these imported goods ?
If you import as a private person AFAIK no. Consumers have very good consumer protection on goods bought from domestic shops, so there's a strong incentive to do that rather than import.
Though all that Temu junk is another story...
But companies importing EE goods have to report to the return company they're a member of, and pay them accordingly.
Can't recall offhand if there's special "flag" on the import declaration or if they just go by HS code. And presumably they get audited on this.
IIRC it used to be more directly linked to the import declaration but they streamlined it.
> there's money to be made by skipping steps, and some do
You must be joking.
"Fifteen major car manufacturers have been fined almost €600 million by the European Commission and the British government after Mercedes-Benz blew the whistle on a cartel that fixed car recycling costs and processes." https://www.dw.com/en/eu-and-uk-fine-carmakers-millions-over...
> The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much innovation
Well that's what the European way is lol. Tax and regulate instead of focusing on the crux of the problem, which is overproduction and planned obsolescence. Any solution that uses taxes and extra charges will simply pass the costs onto the consumer.
I like the idea of putting the onus on companies to get rid of the product, but there should be a consumer onus too. Consumers should be discouraged from tossing everything to the landfill, and companies should be forced to collect the stuff they product after the lifecycle is complete. This might even drive the companies to revise their designs to use more recyclable materials.
A good way to penalize planned obsolescence would be to charge a decreasing penalty if the goods are recycled/disposed earlier. So if I return the fridge for recycling after a couple of years (bad fridge) then the company gets charged automatically 5% of the fridge cost. If I recycle after 10 years then the company gets charged zero (as an example).
Maybe instead of a charge this could be a credit. If the recycling happens after a long time the company gets a bigger payback than if it happens before. The money is collected on checkout so the company can't claim bankruptcy or low profits to make the payment.
> So if I return the fridge for recycling after a couple of years
Here in Norway consumers enjoy a 5 year warranty on products that are meant to last, and 2 years on other non-consumables.
So if my fridge dies due to a manufacturing flaw within 5 years, the store I purchased it on has to repair free of charge, replace it with an equal or better product, or give a full refund. If the product keeps breaking in the same way, the customer can demand a full refund.
And it's up to the store to convincingly argue it's not a manufacturing flaw if they don't want to do that.
This provides similar disincentive to import crappy goods.
Well there's the issue innit? You're not placing fault on the manufacturer of the shoddy goods, but on the stores, which I presume are the local distributors?
Sure, you're disincentivizing crappy goods, but then you'd also barr a strata of society who can only afford those crappy goods. While it's not as much of a problem in Norway I suppose, it is a problem in the majority of the world.
I don't think the Norway example is relevant. We are talking about a country that produces oil for more than a thousand dollars a month per person, including old people and babies. It is literally a country where EVERY person is a millionaire from oil money alone. So they can set the most failed policies and make them work.
but ryandrake's comment might be the solution to what trump/republicans/rust-belt wants:
1. employment-rate for Americans.
2. bringing back industrial capacity in US.
If large companies are forced to recycle/repair INSIDE USA, that ultimately means employment for Americans, and bringing back industrial capacity back to US.
(which could mean forcing Chinese manufacturers settings up whole industrial complexes in US...)
btw, this would be a much easier/lesser-side-effect measure than "tariff on everyone" situation
The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much innovation.
One way to approach this would be to put more responsibilities on large established companies and less on smaller companies. But then the problem is that larger companies will want to arbitrage this somehow by indirectly "owning" these smaller companies with less environmental responsibilities.
This area is far more complex than we think it is.
Also what do we do about totally new materials that are thought to be benign when introduced but then are proved to have harmful effects many years later. Does the company that introduced them now have huge open ended costs and now go bankrupt ?
The solution is as always in the middle ground. Society as a whole bears some cost of cleanup (a kind of insurance policy for all companies) and companies bear some of costs.