Effect on life style from governmental and free enterprise cooperation

The cooperation between government and free enterprise in solid waste management affects our life style by way of promoting our bodily and mental well-being through the proper management of solid wastes generated by us, and by advancing our material welfare through resource recovery. Private enterprise provides the service and government sees to it that the service is efficient, sanitary, environmentally acceptable, and reasonable, much as with a public utility. This cooperation, peculiar to solid waste management, owes its historical origin to a combination of governmental neglect and the nature of solid wastes. Cooperation between government and private enterprise in resource recovery is essential. Private enterprise provides the technology and the marketing of the recovered resources. Government motivates the public to perform the tasks needed for the recovery through education and by the use of incentives and disincentives. Use of the recovered resource is encouraged by way of specification and subsidy. The advantageous effect on our life style coming from the judicious reuse of resources in our wastes is obvious. The price will be in the form of a bit of inconvenience on our part, and perhaps a lessening in the variety of products - undoubtedly no greater than that already brought about by inflation and the decline in competition in business.