The fraud was in denying the externality, which is on the environment in the form of massive amounts of material that can’t be recycled and which do not biodegrade.
>which is on the environment in the form of massive amounts of material that can’t be recycled
Why is that bad? It's not like we're running out of landfill space (at least in the US), and it's not like plastic in a landfill leeches chemicals into the drinking water or something.
> and which do not biodegrade
I don't think anyone was fooled into thinking that plastics were biodegradable.
>Why is that bad? It's not like we're running out of landfill space (at least in the US), and it's not like plastic in a landfill leeches chemicals into the drinking water or something.
Because it's not all going into landfills, it's ending up as litter and giant floating pallets of plastic in the middle of the ocean.
>I don't think anyone was fooled into thinking that plastics were biodegradable.
No, but metal, glass, and paper are all either recyclable or biodegradable or both.
No, that's just fraud. Externality has a very specific meaning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality. In this case a third party isn't bearing the cost. It's still the consumer (via taxes or garbage disposal fees).
>As a comparison to electronics industry in many jurisdictions there are recycling fees paid at the time of purchase.
That's simply a different way of raising funds for waste disposal. I suspect it's not used for other forms of packaging because they don't require special handling, and therefore the cost is so marginal that it's not worth collecting.