According to environmental reports, single-use plastic packaging represents a critical threat to global marine ecosystems and municipal waste systems. In particular, plastic food containers and packaging are estimated to account for over 12 million tonnes of mismanaged waste entering the oceans annually, severely disrupting marine biodiversity and commercial fisheries.
Explain why the consumption and disposal of single-use plastic food packaging may be a source of market failure.
378 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Economics 1.8 The market mechanism, market failure and government intervention in markets, covering 1.8.1 How markets and prices allocate resources, 1.8.2 The meaning of market failure, 1.8.3 Public goods, private goods and quasi-public goods, 1.8.4 Positive and negative externalities in consumption and production, 1.8.5 Merit and demerit goods, 1.8.6 Market imperfections, 1.8.7 Competition policy (A-level only), 1.8.8 Public ownership, privatisation, regulation and deregulation of markets (A-level only), 1.8.9 Government intervention in markets, and 1.8.10 Government failure. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.