The title really should be "The Myth of Forced Recycling"
I guarantee you there are efficient and even profitable ways to recycle, but those not only don't require the use of force but will be made less efficient by its presence.
That being said... Why is this on HN? I would prefer to keep more political topics off of here. Mises.org has some really good technology and Intellectual Property right related articles, but people might be inclined to ignore the source if they're already inclined to believe that it will be off topic.
This is more economic than politic. The government creates an incentive to sort garbage, which should lead to new businesses creation and better overall management of garbage/recycling.
The article suggests that people have to sort their garbage themselves, but they could pay someone to do it for them.
This is similar to carbon taxes philosophy, create an incentive by making consumers bear the cost of inefficiencies, then some company will find a way to improve things, this reducing those costs.
> The government creates an incentive to sort garbage, which should lead to new businesses creation and better overall management of garbage/recycling.
Either way, citizens will be forced to pay these new businesses to do this task, and most will probably still continue to do it themselves to save money. This recycling program is basically a massive tax on the populace, hidden under the guise of environmentalism. Not to mention it's probably much more difficult to start a business in Sweden than here in the states. I would imagine the Swedish government would take issue with companies profiting off of government programs. That, or there's some other red-tape involved, otherwise we'd already see these garbage sorting companies in existence (it's the first thing I thought of too when I was reading the article).
The article is of course exaggerating, noone is forced to do extensive garbage sorting, so paying someone to do it makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people do it because they feel compelled to do "the right thing", others do some sort of best effort, and some ignore it completely.
I guarantee you there are efficient and even profitable ways to recycle, but those not only don't require the use of force but will be made less efficient by its presence.
That being said... Why is this on HN? I would prefer to keep more political topics off of here. Mises.org has some really good technology and Intellectual Property right related articles, but people might be inclined to ignore the source if they're already inclined to believe that it will be off topic.