Sometimes it is automation related but I think more often it is due to the near slavery conditions of much of the world. Obvious slavery and colonialism is no

Sometimes it is automation related but I think more often it is due to the near slavery conditions of much of the world. Obvious slavery and colonialism is no longer fashionable but the current economic system acheives much the same effect by other means. Wealthy countries use a varity of methods to keep the rest of the world producing goods at low cost. Even "fair trade", while slightly better than non-"fair trade" is rarely anywhere near what anyone purchasing items would consider fair if on the other end of the transaction. A global minimum wage or global basic income would do a lot to reduce waste. Some waste is related to health or the logistics of mass production and would not be eliminated without more radical changes (and in some cases might not be possible to eliminated without major effects on health, such as many disposable items used in health care). In theory, manufacturing could work the way scientific exchanges is supposed to, with knowledge shared, and production more localized. This could also reduce waste quite a bit but is obviously a much larger and more difficult change from the current system.