Ch 19 & 20 L

Question 0

How does the price system save our resources?

Answer 0

decrease in supply means increase in price. increase in price forces is to do 3 things.
1. consume less
2. develop substitutes
3. find more
all putting less strain on the resource.

Question 1

Why are we not running out of non renewable resources?

Answer 1

1. Increase in price changes behaviors of gov, people, and industry.
2. advancements in technology

Question 2

What are the two shortcomings of recycling?

Answer 2

• costs of collecting, sorting, ad shipping recycled waste is often greater than what businesses are willing to pay.
• environmental benefits are not what was anticipated. instead of a win win situation, it’s a lose lose.

Question 3

What are the issues with: we can recover everything we throw out?

Answer 3

-We can’t recycle everything. some things are our waste (this is called entropy)

-marginal costs>marginal revenue.
that is, materials are throw out because they’re too expensive to recover given current market conditions and demands
-price for recycled material is extremely high. people arent willing to pay.

Question 4

How can we save the environment?

Answer 4

User pay systems.
pay the true cost of waste disposal at the time of purchase. this will cause consumers to demand less packaging and therefore produce less waste. it assigns ownership to the waste

Question 5

How can government encourage businesses to produce

less waste?

Answer 5

stop subsidizing their raw materials. also, govs could encourage businesses to only purchase from suppliers that achieve certain waste reduction standards.