On Tuesday 11 January 2005 14:07, Niels Voll wrote: > first of all - I'm impressed you actually took the time to think/write > about this in some more detail. So running for office is something you > should definitely consider. And I'm not kidding. It's good when people > who think and care about stuff run for office - even when they > subsequently have to amend their position somewhat because they become > more familiar with more of the realities involved. > > However, if I was your campaign advisor, I'd want you to consider the > following issues for your campaign platform: > > With prices of PC's dropping to sub $500, and thus becoming affordable > for many more people, adding a $100 recycling fee becomes a 20% price > increase and this would hurt the poorest people more than the richest. > Tough sell, when you're running for office.
Not really. If that person finds 6 PCs to recycle, they've got a free one for themself. Not to mention, this would help keep computers in common use for much longer, and the intent is that partly this would be so that people who otherwise couldn't afford them would get one (Computers for Kids, as an example from what I wrote). > Your system sounds much more complex, so your campaign opponent would > accuse you of creating "more government", more administration for > businesses and consumers (keeping receipts with serial numbers for 10 > years is even longer than Revenue Canada requires - ouch!) - your system > sounds more complex to administer than the GST, and the GST (arguably) > killed an entire governing party ... Perhaps, but it's also capable of sustained funding for itself. Administration would not be hard. Every invoice would have all the neccessary details on it already. They'd just need to submit them to this agency. Also keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that it's the right idea, only that it's better than the one they're implementing now. > How is the recycling for kids better than recycling in general? It isn't. It's only 1 example. Various shelters around the city could be similarly served. The point would be to prevent people from wasting PCs which still had life in them. I think the problem is better addressed on the Reduce and reuse portion of the triangle than the recycle one, so my goal would be to promote the reuse and/or sustained longevity. > Recycling always implies a worthwhile use - managing worthwhile causes > in detail creates yet more government again ... And again, it shouldn't be a government thing. I'd run it almost identical to how the bottle depots are ran now. Heck, how's this for an option. Some small company builds rockets and then loads them with shredded old crap and launches them into the sun. They build the rocket from old PC case metals, and control it's flight with old PCs as well. (I know, they need some shielding, but don't get technical, this isn't realistic for much more obvious reasons anyway). I just think the current one is stupid. 10 minuites of thought would give a better alternative... Kev. _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
