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Comment by tkzed49 | Hacker News Reader

Nearly everything in American grocery stores is packaged in plastic. How do we ensure that the companies producing consumer staples find better solutions for packaging and distribution, rather than just continuing to use plastic and passing the tax on to the consumer?

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If wrapping something in plastic makes it so expensive (through taxes) that it causes the end product to lose competitiveness with something not wrapped in plastic, companies will be incentivized to not wrap their product in plastic.

Make the tax so high that the only feasible use of plastic is medical supplies and (very) durable goods.

Also, plastic is not one material. Taxes can be based on the re-usability of the plastic in question. So very durable goods could still be made of plastic and not have restrictive taxes. This could make it easier to achieve because we can re-purpose the existing plastic manufacturing industry without having to build up entirely new production techniques.

>rather than just continuing to use plastic and passing the tax on to the consumer?

Keep increasing the tax until the alternative becomes a more affordable option.

If the tax is high enough, at least one company figure out better packaging solutions to avoid the tax and offer cheaper products. Customers will prefer the cheaper product. Other companies will be forced to follow suit or lose market share.

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