Rethinking the Problem

Had an epiphany about the nurdle issue yesterday. The clean up of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches doesn't necessarily have to be funded by the goodwill of nations or the clever marketing and repurposing of the waste itself.

The most logical answer is the most simple and controversial. Those who manufacture 'waste' should be levied a tax that accounts for the responsible disposal of that manufactured item...and an additional percentage of the tax should be applied to cleanup of the damage previously done, i.e. the clean up of the garbage patches and other destroyed areas.

The ultimate responsibility of what to do with garbage has always been the burden of the consumer and municipalities. I fully agree consumers need to make smarter choices concerning packaging/waste and provincial policy should govern how waste is disposed of and reclaimed but let's face it, soon as a company's product leaves the factory, they are off the hook. They have no responsibility for what ultimately happens to that manufactured product. This is wrong! Industry needs to be concerned and not only that, they have the moral obligation to be an active and leading part of the solution-making process. You created it....you sold it...you made money off of it, now follow through and do something about the waste burden you know you create.

Nothing short of a binding international accord could bring the concept of an 'ecotax' to fruition and gaining cooperation for policy like this would be near impossible. If a nation chose to adopt such policy in isolation they would economically sink itself. No business in their profit-driven mind would dare to subject itself to such a tariff when they could simply avoid it by establishing with no liability elsewhere.

Even if the miraculous did happen, industry would offset their responsibility by making the consumer pay more for the products they consume, after all, morality will not impede the margin for profit. Companies would simply make the people pay time and time again...as companies always do.

In light of the latest human caused/human driven catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico it will be interesting to follow who leads and funds the clean up and what role British Petroleum will play. The 9-year paper trail from an Alaskan courthouse to the Supreme Court after the Exxon Valdez oil spill is difficult to follow. I discern that Exxon paid upwards of $2 billion dollars for the clean up but really they paid nothing in the end as, "Exxon obtained a $4.8 billion credit line from J.P. Morgan & Co. This in turn gave J.P. Morgan the opportunity to create the first modern credit default swap in 1994." (thank you once again Al Gore and Wikipedia)

The corporations on planet Earth, our one and only home, need not be responsible for the damage they inflict upon all living creatures and ecosystems and until this inequity is addressed by the governments of the planet I see no reason for corporations to even care.