Consumer's Choice: Money Today OR Environment Tomorrow?

Recycling is a fairly simple way for a consumer to help prevent waste. All it requires is a separate bag for the disposal of recyclable products. But when it comes to manufacturing facilities, recycling can be a bit more costly.

In the EU, many companies are starting to realize that they are eventually going to be held accountable for the amount of harm that they cause to their environment. Regulation of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are two regulations that the EU will be implementing in the near future to require companies to take into account the damage that they are causing to the environment. With regulations like RoHS and WEEE just waiting to be put into effect, the EU is sending a clear message that producing products at the lowest cost to firms, is not what is best for society as a whole.

In this article, Jacquelyn Ottman applauds these regulations and encourages companies to realize the importance of preserving today’s environment. She wants companies to be creative in their thoughts and actions; not only by encouraging recycling, but by encouraging innovation. She believes that companies are already seeing the benefits of “green production” and that is why even US companies that will not be under the constraints of these new regulations are taking them into consideration.

I think that the idea of green innovation is great in theory. It would be wonderful if everyone took into consideration the damage that was being done to the environment before they acted, but this simply isn’t reality. Even today, with as simple as it is to recycle, how many people actually do it?

People may desire to live in a cleaner world, they may want their children and grandchildren to live in a healthy environment, but when pushed I don’t think that they are willing to pay money to achieve this. Until people are willing to pay higher prices to clean the environment, change will be difficult.

No matter how environmentally friendly a company wants to be, I don’t think that they would be willing to take a loss in profits to achieve it. And as of now, consumers are not demanding it. They do not see their own personal actions as making that big of a difference in environmental quality (as seen by the level of recycling and littering), so I do not see them willing to pay higher prices for an environmentally friendly item when they can get a not so environmentally friendly item at a lower cost.

Maybe I am wrong… In fact I hope that I am. But in my opinion, this is reality.