[steamy]

I'm no big fan of taxes and big govt.

[freehunter]

How are incentives and tax breaks any less "big government" than a tax itself? You still need an agency to oversee the administration of the incentive and tax break. That argument isn't anti-big government, it's "I don't want to pay for my negative externalities".

Taxes are a cost of doing business. Tax breaks and incentives is unearned income.

[steamy]

Just for the record, I'm not in favor of big biz either.

Apparently from the discussion here, working with recycled material is more costly for corporations and therefore they

would not be compelled to give up profits to save the environment and improve sustainability.

So, it's now either the people's or the govt's duty to step in and try to mitigate the risk since the market dynamics are

not favorable to work on their own.

People or govt could help by subsidizing the cost of recycling the materials and making it more appealing for businesses to

use them in their manufacturing processes and therefore preserving the environment.

As to which is better raising taxes or giving tax breaks from the point of view of govt interference, I believe that

incentive is less invasive and more importantly less coercive than raising taxes and distorting the market and pushing the

increase in operating costs to the consumers instead.

[deciplex]

So what? Figure out if the idea is likely to work and judge it based on its merits. Unless you're ready to prove that "taxes and big govt" necessarily and inexorably lead to adverse outcomes because of basic physical laws, the way you're evaluating policy proposals is totally irrational.