From William Hughes-Games, Waipara, New Zealand
The ideas at the heart of On Natural Capital remind me of the relationship between externalities – the peripheral costs of producing goods not included in their price – and the economics of recycling(2 August, p 27).
My favourite example is plastics, which can be pyrolysed and turned back into alkanes that are then separated into their component parts. This process may not be profitable using our narrow definition of profitability. However, if you credit the recycler with the cost of the damage they mitigate by getting rid of these materials, I am pretty sure it would be very profitable. The same principle would make recycling a whole range of other waste materials economically desirable.
