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Nitrous oxide: Laughing gas to be illegal by end of year
(www.bbc.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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It's a lot of effort to built up such a deposit system
It's in no way unfeasible - and the deposits end up paying for the ongoing operation of the system.
Which is better, addressing the littering problem directly, or criminalising and litigating against a bunch of people with a law that can't be enforced if they have a can of cream on them?
The deposit is just a deposit, it doesn't pay for anything. Are you sure you understand how the deposit in this case works? You pay for something and you get that back when you return the item.
Maybe you should look into something like the Finnish bottle deposit scheme. It's great but those take quite some time and effort to set up and get running properly.
Not everyone returns and collects the deposit back, these deposits end up funding the operations.
If the Finnish scheme is anything like the German scheme, that's what I was thinking of. Although it doesn't need to be quite so widespread with machines inside every supermarket.
They'll have to wait with just taking the deposit money since for quite a long time you wouldn't know if they're returning it or not. And if it's anything like other systems, you can return it to different place than the one you paid for, which requires moving money around and whatnot. And there's the issue of getting them from the stores to be recycled and overall upkeep and governance of the system and so on.
The systems are a lot more complex than one might think at first.
I didn't say it was simple, but it's straightforward and very far from unfeasible.
It sure is a thing that can be done, it's just a lot of effort and possibly cost for what it might achieve
But there are tons of costs with criminalisation, too. The cost of police time, the cost of court time, the cost of prison, the loss of production from otherwise good citizens being made into criminals. Which is the better use of public resources? Which would be more effective at actually preventing cannisters from being left around everywhere?
Edit: If anything, making it illegal could lead to more litter. People aren't going to hang on to their empties if they could be used as evidence of a crime.
It seems strange to me to even consider the two as ways of combating litter
Well, cannisters are the only real problem here. All the expert advise said the drug was a non-issue, however there are certainly a lot of cannisters being left all over the place, creating a visible problem. Criminalising it probably won't do anything about the visible problem, it will just incur costs and make otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals.
I was just saying that the deposit systems aren't as simple as one might initially think.
I've done laughing gas and while it was fun I don't really care whether it's legal or not. It seems like a very minor thing.
@TWeaK @RaivoKulli B12 consumption causing spinal cord degeneration is an issue.
Also N2O is a greenhouse gas, and supports combustion more effectively than pure oxygen, not very bad in small quantities and controlle,d spaces.
Yes, there are problems with long term or excessive use, I shouldn't have said it was a non-issue.
@RaivoKulli @TWeaK if someone hands you 10 cans, they've handed you 10 cans. How don't you know?
They don't need tracking.
(If a store hands you 100kg of cans, they've handed you 100kg. Audit would need you to weigh them and know their name, but little else.)
I'm sure shops will be happy to pay out of pocket for cans not purchased from them. You'd need some form of balancing in the system.
Like I said, seems very simple if you don't really think about it.
@RaivoKulli Why wouldn't they be? If they sell a thousand cans they've paid a thousand deposits.
If they return a thousand cans they get back their thousand deposits.
The cans, as with R White's lemonade bottles once upon a time, are fungible.
They'll need a tin of pennies.
I don't think you get what I mean. Customer buys from store A and pays them the deposit and returns them to store B who gives the customer the deposit amount. Store A doesn't care, they got the deposit, didn't have to return it to the customer. Store B had to give the deposit amount to customer even though they didn't get the original deposit amount. See how it might be a nuisance to store B? That's why you need some organization for the system.
@RaivoKulli (I don't need to think hard about it, I grew up with it running)
Might want to give it some thought what it took to actually run it. I grew up with bottle and can deposit system but it would be a disservice to not recognize what it took to get it running and what it takes to run it now.