tbf, gp does explicitly mention "health issues" as the exception where regulation is warranted

personally I would add "environmental impact" to the list of things that justify regulation which does cover battery/electronics reuse, but then making something reusable doesn't actually mean most folks will bother

"Environmental impact" is very broad - you can argue it to cover almost anything.

I think this the main problem: do you trust a bureaucracy(is. non-technical people working in good faith to make rules for the society) to understand the implications of products or do you trust the manufacturer to do the same. In my opinion the bureaucrat can have good intentions, but lacks technical knowledge, while the manufacturer has the technical knowledge, but has incentives to disregard safety.

In my opinion the manufacturer and the bureaucrat are the same thing. The bureaucrat’s chief priority is to get re-elected, not to make the environment better or cars safer. The manufacturers priority is to make a profit. Sometimes their goals align with the interests of the public but a lot of the time they don’t.

Both have incentives to undermine or promote public safety and both have different avenues of accountability.

But big corporate is a bureaucracy, upper-management people making decisions are not engineers and it's driven by political competition between different bosses jokeying for positions

Is there actually any difference?

I'd argue that environmental impact is a health issue.

The United States Public Health Service said TEL (leaded gasoline) was safe to use in fuel in 1925 as did the US Surgeon General 1926.

>I think we ran the experiment to know what consumer choice gets us: petrol with lead in it, and associated pollution and brain damage.

Nailed it. Meanwhile, there has never been an experiment with government intervention that has failed. For example, Agent Orange only existed because of consumer choice, as you astutely imply. So your point is airtight and not full of holes from every angle.

>Do you have an ETA when the magical consumer choice / free market will finally solve issues of single-use plastic pollution, unrecycleability of most products, toxic e-waste poisoning children, slavery in the supply chains, etc, ?

What's the ETA on magical government regulation fixing these problems?

> Agent Orange only existed because of consumer choice

I know how to fix politics using consumer choice - what if you could donate money to politicians, and whoever get the most money wins? Oh, wait..

I know how to fix corruption using government regulation - what if you have a dictator that decides who can take money out of the country and if they should invade Ukraine? Oh, wait..