Regulations are a real annoyance, costing the manufacturer more money and annoying the workers in their toils (think having to wear particle filtering masks in an already hot coal mine). But then the workers, consumers, or the neighbors to the plant need the results of the regulation…
“[A] local shoemaking company, Wolverine Worldwide, the maker of popular footwear brands like Hush Puppies and Merrell and a mainstay in this area since 1883.
Decades ago, Wolverine dumped sludge and leather from its tannery in the woods around here. For years, the company and the government stayed mostly silent about the trash piles, even as developers built houses and a golf course near them and even as researchers documented serious health risks from chemicals in the sludge.
…
Ms. Schweinzger’s well water is among at least 30 to have been found to exceed the federal government’s recommended lifetime exposure levels for PFAS, also known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. She lives on the same street where Wolverine once dumped sludge that included Scotchgard, the waterproofing chemical used in Hush Puppies shoes that contained PFAS.”
Regulation is merely the making explicit the true cost of the manufacture, distribution, and sale of a product – the true costs that have previously been hidden as externalities and often born by unsuspecting outsiders to the transaction.
