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I don't understand how this diminishes the fault of the countries. They took the garbage, got paid for it or profited from the valuable recyclables, then dumped
by yholio 7y ago
I don't understand how this diminishes the fault of the countries. They took the garbage, got paid for it or profited from the valuable recyclables, then dumped the refuse into the rivers. 50% of the garbage comes from a single river that flows entirely within China.
I understand you can't put the blame on a people as a whole and there are bad actors there, but a sovereign country needs to take responsibility.
- danharaj 7y agoSo, does selling their externalities to poorer nations absolve a rich nation of their responsibility?
- crazy1van 7y agoIt depends on whether the poorer nation misrepresented what it would do with the trash.
- peterwwillis 7y agoThis is the "How was I supposed to know the guns I sold would kill people?" defense
- oftenwrong 7y agoOr the "How was I supposed to know the car I sold would be used to run over a crowd of people?" defence
- boomlinde 7y agoAfter a few decades of exported plastic trash ending up in the oceans being common knowledge it doesn't matter whether the handling was initially misrepresented. At best it's willful ignorance, but let's not pretend people have been sending plastic trash to China under the assumption that it would be dealt with responsibly.
- madengr 7y agoChina is the source of that plastic. Flip over any plastic doo-dad; where is it made?
- boomlinde 7y agoFlip over any plastic doo-dad; where is it now? Who bought it? Who decided that we'd rather get these things from China than manufacture them here according to our environmental standards and regulations?
- shitgoose 7y agowas there ever any illusion what poorer nations would do with the trash?
- ionised 7y agoA poorer nation probably will misrepresent what they do with the trash. The sellers can't in all honestly claim they didn't know this would be the result.
- rootusrootus 7y agoChina has the second largest GDP of any nation in the world. I think it's safe to say they are not poor.
- jordache 7y agowhat does it mean to be poor? Economic output of an entire country? Or per capita. When measured by the latter, I can ensure you, China has a shit ton of poor people... greater than the population of the U.S.
- rootusrootus 7y agoEven measured per capita, they're about a third of a way from the top of the list. They have lots of high tech industry, nuclear weapons, etc. They can definitely afford to keep the rivers clean, it's a policy choice not an economic one. They are not poor in any meaningful sense of the word, being taken advantage of by the US and EU to dump our trash on.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- BurningFrog 7y agoChina is spending trillions in foreign aid.
- bilbo0s 7y agoI don't know where you heard that at man, but China is not poor. At all. I mean that place is the opposite of poor. I've been to poor countries. Cuba is poor for instance. Or Guinea. China? Not so much.
- danharaj 7y agoWhy do you think GDP is a good measure of wealth?
- 7y ago
- dfilppi 7y agoYes
- PunchTornado 7y agodon't buy it if you don't want it
- vonmoltke 7y agoWho said it does?
- newshorts 7y agoAre you looking at this from a western perspective? Is China really poor? I would question that.
- wtdata 7y agoWhat do you propose, that we stop doing any business with a poorer nation if we suspect they will somehow behave badly - according to our standards - while carrying out the task?
- ab8 7y agoPlastic use has to be curtailed at source. If developed countries with lower populations are using many times more plastic than developing countries with larger populations, it is time to look in the mirror. It is not fair to allow some countries to make decisions based on economics but expect others to be ecologically responsible. Let's see how the US handles its own trash now, since China has stopped importing it.
- reaperducer 7y agoLet's see how the US handles its own trash now, since China has stopped importing it. Well, there was a New York Times article a few weeks ago about how the cardboard that used to be shipped to China for recycling is now being recycled domestically into Amazon boxes, and paper mills in Wisconsin are reopening, being retrofitted to handle recycled cardboard, and bringing workers back to run them. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/business/cardboard.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/business/cardboard.html
- bunderbunder 7y agoNot just China. Now that plastic is part of the Basel convention, it's going to be more difficult for the US to export its plastic waste anywhere.
- bilbo0s 7y agoWe could probably stand to draw down our use of a lot of this plastic stuff around here. Less single use plastic containers. In fact, less plastic containers period. More metal containers, more glass containers, and yes, you will have to reuse them. More recycled paper, etc etc etc. Oh yeah, and our kids don't really need all these plastic toys we buy them. Maybe it wouldn't be a terrible thing for them to have to go outside and play like we did? Just those two right there would probably make a small bu meaningful dent. Probably a lot of other places we could draw down as well.
- bmj 7y agoOh yeah, and our kids don't really need all these plastic toys we buy them. Maybe it wouldn't be a terrible thing for them to have to go outside and play like we did? Sure, I played outside a lot as a kid, but I also had plenty of plastic toys, too. (Note: born in the early 1970s)
- lm28469 7y agoYou don't get to throw your dog's shit on the neighbour yard and complain when he throws it on the sidewalk. edit: so what do you do when a contract is breached for years ? Find a solution or point the finger while closing your eyes on the issue because you know there is no other cost effective way to take care of the problem ?
- AimForTheBushes 7y agoNot if I'm paying my neighbor to take care of it.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoIf you paid your neighbor to dispose of your dog's shit and he throws it on the sidewalk you have a pretty good basis for complaining.
- bilbo0s 7y agoThat's going to depend on the details of the contract. Which is the problem. Fine print is exactly the reason environmentalists were staunchly opposed to any nation exporting trash for any reason, to any other nation in the first place. But still, for me, the mere fact that the neighbor said I could throw it on his lawn means that the dog shit shouldn't be in the street. But that's just me, other people may see it different.
- bilbo0s 7y agoWell... I mean... if your neighbor said you could throw it on his lawn? Yes, it's your fault too. I don't think anyone is saying that it's not the fault of the West for example. But come on man? If you say I can dump my dog's shit on your lawn, then yeah, of course that's where I'm going to dump it.