Right, privatize the profits, socialize the costs. The fast fashion industry makes billions in profit every year, what do you mean exactly by "Manufacturers may not have the money to do the research"?
> This is what government is for. Tax everybody to provide benefits to everybody. This is infrastructure spending, just like roads.
This is not roads, this is waste management. I pay proportional to the amount of waste my household produces to have it disposed correctly, the more waste I produce, the more I pay. That is what government is for, steering behavior through taxation, instead of letting the most morally depraved enrich themselves on the rest of society.
> Manufacturers may not have the money to do the research themselves, but are highly incentivized to incorporate the improvements if somebody else figures it out for them.
Which incentive is this exactly then if the cost is bore by society? "Polluter pays" creates both that exact incentive and the required funds for public research.
And if they did figure it out, they'd keep it secret as a competitive advantage.
This is what government is for. Tax everybody to provide benefits to everybody. This is infrastructure spending, just like roads.