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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Maybe the solution is better labeling.

No, we are awash in labels already and I am sick of everything having a legal treatise attached to it. Labels just throw the problem back in the laps of consumers, an approach which clearly does not work.

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> No, we are awash in labels already and I am sick of everything having a legal treatise attached to it. Labels just throw the problem back in the laps of consumers, an approach which clearly does not work.

Some labels are good and informative. Some labels are just a way for corporations to blame consumers for what consumers cannot do anything about.

Falsehood: - "Consumers are purchasing toxic products, so that is what we make."

Reality: - "Consumers buy what is available and they can afford."

Recycling labels are some of the biggest falsehoods. Many plastics are simply not recycled at all, I think at best only #1 and #2 plastics are largely ever recycled. Even things like orange juice containers are considered not recyclable due to their heavy plastic coatings inside the paper shell and they will get sorted out to be dumped.

It's one way industry has scammed the public by convincing them much of the waste generated by low-cost (to the manufacturer) packaging was recyclable.

It’s terrible. Plus the west pays the Chinese companies to take care off the plastics anyway. They just dump it in the ocean and nothing is recycled.

Is actually better for the planet that you just burn it yourself instead of wasting diesel on transport to nowhere.

Brand names were introduced to fight product adulteration. We still default to assuming that is working today. We should probably demand that this is actually true.

Target is an example of labels working and allowing consumers to be informed while still taking responsibility at the corporate level.

They have a chemical policy[1] that is moving in the right direction, and labels like Oeko-Tex 100, Oeko-Tex Made in Green, Clean Beauty, BPA Free, Paraben Free and Recycled. The changes they are making as a part of their chemical policy (eliminating PFAS and other concerning chemicals from cleaning and baby items) are benefiting everyone, and consumers who have specific concerns can quickly get more information about what they are buying. Most consumers are increasingly aware of risks, but most do not have the desire or time to look into the manufacturing process for everything they buy.

1. https://corporate.target.com/sustainability-ESG/environment/...

Like those "WARNING: This product can expose you to [name of chemical], which is known to the State of California to cause cancer. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov." stickers. Fortunately I don't live in California.

It's even worse because it often doesn't include the name of the chemical.

Yes, they're so ubiquitous as to be useless. I don't know what I'm being exposed to or in what concentrations, so most of the time I just ignore them.

Am I being exposed to worrying quantities of lead, or do they sometimes serve coffee in the break room? No way to tell!

It would transform recycling.

You might not think much about having specific types of labels, but its basically impossible for a chemist to know anything beyond ~8 generic types of plastic in the US.

The problem is that without labels you're having someone in government decide what risk levels are acceptable to everyone and that simply doesn't work when you have a population that includes upper class suburban mum who is willing to pay for $100 bananas to decrease her lifetime cancer risk by 0.01% and a homeless dude with a $20/week food budget.

And guess which one of these groups has actual influence on government policy? Yup, its the poor who get screwed.

Government regulation often benefits everyone. When a regulation forces all manufacturinng to reach a certain standard, then economies of scale for that drive down the overall price.

If you let consumers decide, what you end up with is upper class suburban mums eating healthy bananas, while the homeless dude eats bananas that were grown in a superfund site.

The main criteria for government regulation is that it appears to benefit the upper middle class who influence government (by being the media, by being organized voters/campaigners and by being the actual senior government people discussing and deciding). Where the regulation is low cost and scales well you get an improvement for the poor too. If scale doesn't apply well (e.g. surgery) or if regulation helps and doesn't harm the upper middle class (e.g. the mountain of regulations around housebuilding in the uk) or if the regulation only appears helpful (e.g. the overregulation of nuclear power) then the poor will suffer (e.g. by dying while on waiting lists or being unable to afford housing or having eye watering electricity bills).

Even if you disagree with my particular examples of the above three classes I think you'll be able to come up with something for each of them.

I see your point though I think you're overstating it. TBH I think the nutrition facts label works reasonably well, and balances sufficiency with market flexibility.

I agree those labels might work, though it'll be tricky to actually find out.

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