Technology

Something that should be considered when buying your micromobility device: Try to get something that will last and not end up as trash.

Doesn't make sense to do it at the consumer level. It's easy for anyone who doesn't care to just not do it. And the information to try to regulate products isn't available to individual consumers, and is too large of a task to track.

The costs and drawbacks should be priced into the product; one should just worry about the price.

• If mining has negative externalities that are not already priced in, then the country doing the mining should charge to account for that.

• If disposal has negative externalities that are not already priced in, then the country doing the mining should charge to account for that.

Both of those countries already have incentives to do that, don't run into the misincentive problem.

If you want to change anything at the consumer level, it'd make sense to change pricing on waste disposal. Mining (should) already be incorporated in that, and if it isn't, it's not the consumer who should change that.

On the other hand, right now, essentially all items cost the same amount to dispose, and it's by volume, aside from maybe hazardous goods. You want a consumer to take into account the cost of disposal at purchase time.

Problem is that the consumer has an incentive to just dump whatever into the trash can, and it's hard to enforce improper disposal. So you can't charge 'em -- or at least not very effectively, unless you're going to have very severe penalties, given the low rate at which you'd catch someone -- for improperly disposing of something.

A better route: have a surcharge attached to a product at sale time associated with the cost of a product that is improperly-disposed-of, then provide customers a rebate when they dispose of it if they recycle it. Like, you don't want CFLs disposed of in the garbage because of mercury. That's a negative externality attached to putting it in a landfill. You charge more at sale time, then the consumer gets a rebate when he drops 'em off with a hazardous waste disposal company.

But what about if you aren't worried about negative externalities from improper disposal, but rather positive externalities from recycling, like, the value of the recovered material? With recycling, you don't have to do anything for positive externalities -- the incentive already exists, which is why the scrap industry is there. If it's worth it to a recycling company and individual to recycle, they'll already do it.