I'm becoming increasingly convinced that manufacturers should be responsible for the full cost of disposal, and that this obligation should be non-transferable to consumers.
After all, they built the widget! The vast logistical network of freight, retailers, consumers, and waste disposal services merely transported the widget to a landfill.
But there are difficulties with this viewpoint. How does the disposal obligation work in horizontally-integrated industries (e.g. car manufacturing)? How does it work with globalization (import taxes?)? Is there any viable way to account for the waste (core samples into landfills?) or will the cost be a guess subject to lobbyists?
One approach might be to require the manufacturer or importer to rent space in a network of landfills by tonnage. Call it "waste disposal insurance".
EDIT: A random idea would incorporate a blockchain containing transactions identifying the serial numbers of the products or components. That way, assemblages could be formally shown to be composed of properly insured components, even requiring the final serial number to be the hash of its components. The tokens could be traded between manufacturers and landfills directly, closing the loop on the product lifecycle. Compliance audits would simply compare sales records to the public chain.
On the landfill side, tokens operate as space reservations by tonnage, and can be efficiently traded to balance loads without requiring products to be taken to specific landfills.
