7 ms·

Well, West should stop dumping their garbage to the rest of the world. It is easy to have strict environmental regulations, if they are not enforced, and negat

Well, West should stop dumping their garbage to the rest of the world. It is easy to have strict environmental regulations, if they are not enforced, and negative externalities are exported.

mschuster91 2y ago
> Well, West should stop dumping their garbage to the rest of the world. Actually the export of ships to be wrecked in Asia already is banned under EU law and international treaties - and sometimes, even company owners can and do land in jail for violating them, as it happened to Georg Eide [1]. The difficulty lies in the fact that many ships aren't registered in the EU countries, but in small countries like Antigua who don't have any incentive to help out European countries enforce their laws, and by many ships being legally hidden between layers of shell companies. It can go as far as there being a dedicated LLC in yet another tax haven per ship, and once the ship is to be wrecked, it isn't the ship itself that's being sold for wrecking (because that would be openly illegal and easy to catch and prove for authorities), but the LLC is being sold, and the lax attitude towards audit and public records requirements in the tax havens makes it very difficult to prove illegal intent. [1] https://www.freitag.de/autoren/julia-lauter/reedereien-lassen-alte-frachter-im-globalen-sueden-abwracken https://www.freitag.de/autoren/julia-lauter/reedereien-lasse...
- jopsen 2y ago
  We could require that ships they dock in EU harbours are owned by countries that are party to some international anti-ship breaking agreement. But it's a lot of paperwork :)
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    Still would not prevent just selling the LLC at the end of the ship's useful life. And I'm not sure how to effectively police that.
    - Teever 2y ago
      Find the names of the people involved, get a warrant and use the full power of that impressive global surveillance system that we've created to fight the global war on terror to surveil them and find evidence of other crimes that they've surely committed and prosecute the fuck out of them for that.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Seems like a lot of work to prevent India from breaking ships it wants to break.
        Teever 2y ago
        Meaningless statement. You can say the exact same thing about any law.
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Not every law tries to regulate the behavior of people in other jurisdictions.
        Teever 2y ago
        How is this law like that?
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Europeans don't like the working conditions of shipbreakers in India, and don't like the pollution it creates in India. Europeans can't directly tell the Indians what they can and cannot do. Instead, the parent post is proposing to use the state surveillance app aratus to go after and prosecute the f** out of people that sell ships to India. I said it seems like a lot of work to try to stop someone in another country from doing something in their own country. I prefer the more hands off approach where you let people in other countries decide what they want to do as long as they aren't hurting you. If India wants to ban ship breaking or impose harsh restrictions, they can do that themselves. I think it's arrogant and dehumanizing for Outsiders to try to control what happens in India.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Like the Jones Act [0], it's easy to create unintended consequences. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#Cabotage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#...
    - jopsen 2y ago
      That's a good point, or you could make a new cookie law. Or kill all the logistics companies in the EU.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    But that might put the EU at an economic disadvantage; it's hubris to believe the rest of the world will bend backwards to meet EU's rules. I mean they do, see cookie banners/GDPR, Apple, etc, but still. I'm of the unsubstantiated opinion that all the laws make the EU a less desireable market. But that's a policy based on morals instead of economics / relentless capitalism.
    - jopsen 2y ago
      It's certainly not without risk. And like I said, it's a lot of paperwork. Maybe, one day, or maybe in small increments.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > But that might put the EU at an economic disadvantage; it's hubris to believe the rest of the world will bend backwards to meet EU's rules. Actually, it will. RoHS and the push for standardizing phone connectors ended up influencing the whole world and making it a better place for everyone. The EU is a sizable market, and unlike the US with its constant elections and government shutdowns, it's politically relatively stable. No one, as said not even Apple, can ignore the demands of the European Union.
      - scarby2 2y ago
        The EU has consent elections, it's just a proportional representation forces people to work together to get anything done, so you end up with a lot of relatively uncontroversial work happening. There's also little point in trying to score points as you will never have a majority
        mschuster91 2y ago
        > The EU has consent elections The EU parliament is elected every five years, and while most of the member countries elect during the EU parliament term and so it's election year somewhere in the EU every year, national elections usually have negligible impact on the European level (outside of dramatic swings like in Poland or Slovakia between dedicated notorious pro-EU and anti-EU parties). In contrast, the US re-elects the whole House and 1/3rd of the Senate every two years which means that the House is basically only at peace to work for a year at a time (first half year is spent on getting the newbies up to speed, last half year is filled with campaigning), and if changing control over the Senate is even possible depends on if the states whose seats are up for reelection are considered swing states or not. The entire way the US Congress works is not incentivizing bipartisan legislation, and it's outright hostile to the idea that there could be more than two political parties.
- gosub100 2y ago
  To make matters worse, when these ships come under attack or get hijacked, suddenly they want the full backing of Western military forces. Strange they don't call on Panema or Antigua's military forces, since that's where they are registered.
  - eru 2y ago
    > [...], suddenly they want the full backing of Western military forces. Who is 'they'? Do you have records of the 'ships' (I assume their owners?), asking for that full backing directly?
    - gosub100 2y ago
      Yes, I do.
- withinboredom 2y ago
  Reminds me of when I lived on a sailboat. I just bought the LLC that owned it, which always operated at a loss just to keep the ship in working order, which was a tax write off. It even came with accountants who knew how to keep everything in the books “correct.”
aredox 2y ago
The maritime industry, more than "the West", is a prime culprit there. Let's also mention how they skirt taxation, the use of flags of convenience, the lack of protection for crews, the matrioshka shell companies...
- fifilura 2y ago
  Also the clothes industry! The clothes brands claim to recycle cotton, but use 3rd party "recycling companies" to ship the textiles to Africa, where they just burn it in huge waste heaps. With huge environmental issues. https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/54589/how-fast-fashion-is-fuelling-the-fashion-waste-crisis-in-africa/ https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/54589/how-fast-fas... Computer "recycling" in Lagos/Nigeria is another topic.
  - fifilura 2y ago
    A follow up Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet added a airtags in clothes "recycled" by H&M. Guess where they ended up? https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/jlME1e/aftonbladet-investigation-into-h-m-s-recycling-airtags-in-items https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/jlME1e/aftonbladet-inve...
    - 542458 2y ago
      I’m a bit confused as to how this investigation worked - how can they tell if clothes were ground for fiber with just airtags?
      - fifilura 2y ago
        FWIW This is one of the sources, in Swedish though. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/0QxkyA/modets-morker-5-av-10-h-m-plagg-hamnar-i-afrika https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/0QxkyA/modets-morker-5-... At the end there they list the fate of 10 different garments they returned to H&M. You can evaluate yourself if you find this environmentally friendly or not.
throwaway2037 2y ago
"The West". LOL. What makes you think rich countries in the Middle East or East/South East Asia are any different? They are not.

Well, West should stop dumping their garbage to the rest of the world. It is easy to have strict environmental regulations, if they are not enforced, and negative externalities are exported.

mschuster91 2y ago

> Well, West should stop dumping their garbage to the rest of the world. Actually the export of ships to be wrecked in Asia already is banned under EU law and international treaties - and sometimes, even company owners can and do land in jail for violating them, as it happened to Georg Eide [1]. The difficulty lies in the fact that many ships aren't registered in the EU countries, but in small countries like Antigua who don't have any incentive to help out European countries enforce their laws, and by many ships being legally hidden between layers of shell companies. It can go as far as there being a dedicated LLC in yet another tax haven per ship, and once the ship is to be wrecked, it isn't the ship itself that's being sold for wrecking (because that would be openly illegal and easy to catch and prove for authorities), but the LLC is being sold, and the lax attitude towards audit and public records requirements in the tax havens makes it very difficult to prove illegal intent. [1] https://www.freitag.de/autoren/julia-lauter/reedereien-lassen-alte-frachter-im-globalen-sueden-abwracken https://www.freitag.de/autoren/julia-lauter/reedereien-lasse...

jopsen 2y ago
We could require that ships they dock in EU harbours are owned by countries that are party to some international anti-ship breaking agreement. But it's a lot of paperwork :)
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Still would not prevent just selling the LLC at the end of the ship's useful life. And I'm not sure how to effectively police that.
  - Teever 2y ago
    Find the names of the people involved, get a warrant and use the full power of that impressive global surveillance system that we've created to fight the global war on terror to surveil them and find evidence of other crimes that they've surely committed and prosecute the fuck out of them for that.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      Seems like a lot of work to prevent India from breaking ships it wants to break.
      - Teever 2y ago
        Meaningless statement. You can say the exact same thing about any law.
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Not every law tries to regulate the behavior of people in other jurisdictions.
        Teever 2y ago
        How is this law like that?
        s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Europeans don't like the working conditions of shipbreakers in India, and don't like the pollution it creates in India. Europeans can't directly tell the Indians what they can and cannot do. Instead, the parent post is proposing to use the state surveillance app aratus to go after and prosecute the f** out of people that sell ships to India. I said it seems like a lot of work to try to stop someone in another country from doing something in their own country. I prefer the more hands off approach where you let people in other countries decide what they want to do as long as they aren't hurting you. If India wants to ban ship breaking or impose harsh restrictions, they can do that themselves. I think it's arrogant and dehumanizing for Outsiders to try to control what happens in India.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Like the Jones Act [0], it's easy to create unintended consequences. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#Cabotage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Marine_Act_of_1920#...
  - jopsen 2y ago
    That's a good point, or you could make a new cookie law. Or kill all the logistics companies in the EU.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  But that might put the EU at an economic disadvantage; it's hubris to believe the rest of the world will bend backwards to meet EU's rules. I mean they do, see cookie banners/GDPR, Apple, etc, but still. I'm of the unsubstantiated opinion that all the laws make the EU a less desireable market. But that's a policy based on morals instead of economics / relentless capitalism.
  - jopsen 2y ago
    It's certainly not without risk. And like I said, it's a lot of paperwork. Maybe, one day, or maybe in small increments.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > But that might put the EU at an economic disadvantage; it's hubris to believe the rest of the world will bend backwards to meet EU's rules. Actually, it will. RoHS and the push for standardizing phone connectors ended up influencing the whole world and making it a better place for everyone. The EU is a sizable market, and unlike the US with its constant elections and government shutdowns, it's politically relatively stable. No one, as said not even Apple, can ignore the demands of the European Union.
    - scarby2 2y ago
      The EU has consent elections, it's just a proportional representation forces people to work together to get anything done, so you end up with a lot of relatively uncontroversial work happening. There's also little point in trying to score points as you will never have a majority
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        > The EU has consent elections The EU parliament is elected every five years, and while most of the member countries elect during the EU parliament term and so it's election year somewhere in the EU every year, national elections usually have negligible impact on the European level (outside of dramatic swings like in Poland or Slovakia between dedicated notorious pro-EU and anti-EU parties). In contrast, the US re-elects the whole House and 1/3rd of the Senate every two years which means that the House is basically only at peace to work for a year at a time (first half year is spent on getting the newbies up to speed, last half year is filled with campaigning), and if changing control over the Senate is even possible depends on if the states whose seats are up for reelection are considered swing states or not. The entire way the US Congress works is not incentivizing bipartisan legislation, and it's outright hostile to the idea that there could be more than two political parties.
gosub100 2y ago
To make matters worse, when these ships come under attack or get hijacked, suddenly they want the full backing of Western military forces. Strange they don't call on Panema or Antigua's military forces, since that's where they are registered.
- eru 2y ago
  > [...], suddenly they want the full backing of Western military forces. Who is 'they'? Do you have records of the 'ships' (I assume their owners?), asking for that full backing directly?
  - gosub100 2y ago
    Yes, I do.
withinboredom 2y ago
Reminds me of when I lived on a sailboat. I just bought the LLC that owned it, which always operated at a loss just to keep the ship in working order, which was a tax write off. It even came with accountants who knew how to keep everything in the books “correct.”

aredox 2y ago

The maritime industry, more than "the West", is a prime culprit there. Let's also mention how they skirt taxation, the use of flags of convenience, the lack of protection for crews, the matrioshka shell companies...

fifilura 2y ago
Also the clothes industry! The clothes brands claim to recycle cotton, but use 3rd party "recycling companies" to ship the textiles to Africa, where they just burn it in huge waste heaps. With huge environmental issues. https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/54589/how-fast-fashion-is-fuelling-the-fashion-waste-crisis-in-africa/ https://www.greenpeace.org/africa/en/blog/54589/how-fast-fas... Computer "recycling" in Lagos/Nigeria is another topic.
- fifilura 2y ago
  A follow up Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet added a airtags in clothes "recycled" by H&M. Guess where they ended up? https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/jlME1e/aftonbladet-investigation-into-h-m-s-recycling-airtags-in-items https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/jlME1e/aftonbladet-inve...
  - 542458 2y ago
    I’m a bit confused as to how this investigation worked - how can they tell if clothes were ground for fiber with just airtags?
    - fifilura 2y ago
      FWIW This is one of the sources, in Swedish though. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/0QxkyA/modets-morker-5-av-10-h-m-plagg-hamnar-i-afrika https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/0QxkyA/modets-morker-5-... At the end there they list the fate of 10 different garments they returned to H&M. You can evaluate yourself if you find this environmentally friendly or not.

throwaway2037 2y ago

"The West". LOL. What makes you think rich countries in the Middle East or East/South East Asia are any different? They are not.