[Khrushchev's Other Shoe]

Here is my question:

If recycling is the most cost-effective method, it will win in the marketplace. If it isn't, it won't. And if it isn't, why would you want to mandate it?

And here is Dragon Star's answer:

To save the world perhaps?

If a policy is an inefficient way of eliminating the environmental damage of waste, then mandating it is not saving the world, it is destroying the world. It is using resources inefficiently, resources that could be devoted to solving other problems, including other environmental problems. If that's what you want to do, that's up to you, but I couldn't live with myself.

So far, I get the impression you don't know the answers to the following questions:

a) Does a problem exist?

b) If so, how serious is it?

c) Does a proposed solution actually solve the problem?

d) Is it the best solution to the problem?

Those seem like good questions to know if you're going to recommend policy, don't they? There's been a lot of study on these questions. Are you familiar with any of it?

Well, who would have thought that you can make a flawless diamond from peanut-butter?

I doubt I would have. Same question as before. If this somehow proves that recycling is the best policy, why does it not also prove that alternatives are the best policy?

And I agree with Carnifex, what other methods do you speak of?

Will be glad to do so, including the ones mentioned in the article. But first, please answer my earlier questions - what is the magnitude of the problem you wish to solve, and what analysis do you have to show that your proposed solution actually solves the problem, and is in fact the best solution?