I once proposed a guessing game to determine whether something is a resource or just garbage, to be disposed of at the lowest possible cost, including costs to the environment. The answer comes down to price. If someone will pay you for the item, it’s a resource. Or, if you can use the item to make something else people want, and do it at lower price or higher quality than you could without that item, then the item is also a resource. But if you have to pay someone to take it, then the item is garbage.
Source: Michael Munger, Recycling: Can It Be Wrong, When It Feels So Right? from the discussion of "The Political Economy of Recycling," Cato Unbound, June 2013
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