Digression: Pollution Red Herrings

Litter “Pollution”: A misleading idea, started when environmental awareness really took off world-wide in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s, is that “pollution” means “litter” and that preventing litter means doing all that’s necessary to prevent pollution and protect the environment. Many people still believe this.

This false idea was begun by the packaging industry in the U.S.A., which started a front organisation called the Keep America Beautiful Council. This had a faithful copy in Australia, founded by the same industry for the same reasons, called the Keep Australia Beautiful Council. The purpose of KABC was ostensibly to make everyone put litter in bins whence it could be carted off so as to keep the environment looking pretty. The real purpose was to keep sales of excess and disposable packaging high and rising. It was thought that if the amount of litter being chucked around went on increasing, public anger would force packaging reductions, recycling, and other measures that were seen by the packaging industry as a threat to their business.

In fact, the environmental pollution resulting from litter is not reduced by putting it all in bins whence it can be carted off to a concentrated area. Rather, pollution is increased because

1. concentrating the stuff in thick deposits makes it more difficult to degrade by natural processes,

and

2. the areas selected for dumping are of low value in real estate terms, but of relatively high ecological value compared to the urban areas whence the litter was collected.

These dumping areas are of low real estate value not because they are unpleasant, but because they are relatively far from urban facilities. They are of high ecological value because they are often swamps or wetlands, regarded as smelly or “unsightly” but essential seasonal or permanent habitats for myriad species of birds, amphibians, and insects. Other dumping areas are important reservoirs of diverse plant and mammal species.

For the best treatment of our natural environment, the answer is not to consume as much throwaway goods and packaging as we can and throw it all in the rubbish bins provided. Rather, the answer is first, to consume as little as possible and thus to throw away as little as possible. Second, what we do throw away should be spread around dead or near-dead areas, preferably roads and verges, car parks, paved areas and vacant lots rather than green parkland. Wet rubbish such as garden cuttings and vegetable leavings should be used on suburban gardens as compost. Sewage and toxic chemicals cannot, of course, be disposed of in this way, but we should minimise the need to dispose of them at all.

Disposed of as suggested, the litter is easier to degrade by oxidation and sunlight and the areas on which it is preferably to be spread are not habitats for life that it can harm or restrict. Such spreading is ecologically neutral and does not deplete environmental resources, unlike the method of concentrated dumping in natural areas. In addition, the unpleasant appearance of the litter scattered about will create public pressure for reduced packaging generally and for more returnable containers.

This is another case where what is best ecologically goes directly against what is commonly thought of as good sense and correct behaviour. We must come to think of good sense and correct behaviour to be whatever best serves the purpose of conserving and enhancing the earth’s life and life-supporting capacity, and let this goal override all the rest, ideas of tidiness and propping up particular industries.

Why do the packaging industries go to the length of creating bogus “environmental” organisations to try to maintain and increase their sales? Not because they are evil or want to bring down the economy; they are just people who believe what most people currently believe; that the goals of economic well-being and progress are best served by ever-increasing consumption of everything, and a few birds, bushes, and odd furry creatures are of no consequence by comparison.

In fact, of course, the ever-increasing consumption of resources and the elimination of species and habitats go against the goal of economic well-being, which is best served by environmental conservation and enhancement.

First Edition

Posts in this Series

• Review of 1988 edition of Economics for a Round Earth
• Foreword
• Ends and Means
• Evolution Not Revolution
• Notes on Evolution Not Revolution
• Concepts and Terms – What is ‘wealth’?
• Production?
• The Throughput Chain
• The Derivatives of Wealth
• Global Inequalities in Wealth
• Economic Growth Redefined
• Misconceptions in Practice
• Borrowing to Invest to Get Rich
• Environment versus Economic Progress
• Digression: Pollution Red Herrings
• Digression: Depletion and Inflation
• Value Inflation – the Trigger, not the Bullet
• Living Standard and Quality of Life
• Digression: Resource Consumption, Jobs, and Hands Off
• When the Boom comes
• The Effect of People’s Expectations
• Hard Work – Virtue or Vice?
• Who needs the Snail Darter?
• More Dollars for Conservation?
• Non-renewable Resources – Leave Them in the Ground?
• Digression: Fast Breeder Nuclear Fission Reactors
• Minerals in National Parks – Leave Them in the Ground?
• Population and Wealth
• Left, Right and The Environment
• Digression: Flat Earth Economics; Capitalist and Communist Varieties Contrasted
• Digression: “So Long As We Profit, Costs Elsewhere Aren’t Our Problem”?
• Capitalism versus Communism Continued – Towards a Better Economics
• Limits to Growth?
• Solar Energy – a Special Case
• The Solar-Powered Car
• Money Supply, Throughput and Inflation
• Real and Money Wages: Living Standards
• Digression: Caution about “Increases” and “Decreases”
• The Idea of Proportionate Flows Applied to Wages: the Great Depression
• Deficit Financing
• Supply-side Economics and the Laffer Curve
• The Optimum Proportionate Flow Condition
• Digression: Thrift versus Spendthrift
• Digression: the Private Motor Car – a Basic Necessity?
• The Idea of Proportionate Flows Applied to Wages – the Stagflation of the 1970′s and 80′s
• Excessive Wages Can Cost Jobs
• Fight Unemployment or Inflation First?
• Digression: Work and Jobs
• Other “Job Creation” Schemes
• Visual and Noise Pollution
• Digression: Renewal and Recycling of Resources; Wages and Jobs
• Ratio Distortion and Consumption
• Aggregate Demand – Components and Internal Ratio
• A Wage Freeze
• Full Wage Indexation – Kindergarten Economics
• The Slave Economy
• A Better Wage-fixing System
• Employment and the Steady State
• Consumer-Led Recovery
• Interest Rates and Ratio Distortion
• Demographic Trends and Living Standards
• Digression: Bad Economics Good for Conservation?
• Coping with Aging Populations
• Stabilising the Human Population
• Costs – What Really Costs Us and What Doesn’t?
• Digression: Other Comments on Statements in UN Report
• Discussion of Costs Resumed
• The Problem of Government Debt
• Budget Balancing Methods – Cost or Gain?
• Digression: Government Expenditure – Government Employees
• Expenditure on Weapons
• Conclusion

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