7 ms·
While I want to stop buying such stuff, where does it end? A quick look at my favourite supermarket shows that almost 90% of the products are "Made in China". H
by thex86 13y ago
While I want to stop buying such stuff, where does it end? A quick look at my favourite supermarket shows that almost 90% of the products are "Made in China". How do I know they were not made under similar circumstances? Or the t-shirts that are made in Bangladesh that I can expect to be made pretty much under the same conditions of forced labour. I would love to buy things made in USA or Canada but that is not happening. I have tried to do this in the past and I am even willing to pay extra dollars for this, but I find most companies have shifted manufacturing to China. My recent conversation with a company went like:
Me: Where do you manufacture your products?
Company: We used to manufacture them in Canada but we shifted to China. But rest assured, our quality is the same and blah blah blah.
So my point is, we do not have a choice. You can boycott Apple or Sony PS4 now, but it doesn't end there.
- KevinEldon 13y agoWhere do you live? It's odd to me that 90% of the products at your favorite supermarket are made in China. Like bananas, oranges, bread, beer, hamburger, celery, avacados, beans, cereal, milk, fish... these do not seem like things that are made in China if you live in the Western hemisphere. I know I have many things made in China, but they seem to be more physical long-term goods; toys, electronics (maybe?), physical things.
- jusben1369 13y agoHe lives in China.
- thex86 13y agoI was not talking about eatables. I was talking about electronics and non-edible stuff. Should have clarified.
- KevinEldon 13y agoNo worries. I do not think 90% of the thing I buy from Walmart and other common "supermarkets" in the South Eastern US are from China, but I cannot vouch or the labor laws of these sources... that doesn't mean they're bad, it means I need to pay more attention to these things.
- Klinky 13y agoMuch of the produce you mentioned is picked by farm workers who also endure poor labor conditions.
- BSousa 13y agoWhile I haven't found anything for electronics, you can get a lot of toys and clothes that aren't made in china and agree to fair workers rights. Usually (not always) if you buy organic clothes, they are manufactured somewhere else than China. The UK has a thriving eco toys industry with toys made of wood and metal instead of plastic. Germany has quite good producers of kitchenware that also don't outsource to China. But yeah, you will have to search around and mostly order online but you can find most stuff from brands that don't outsource to China.
- e12e 13y agoIt's not just about where it's made. Both Amazon (fulfilment centres) and Wall Mart have pretty poor labour practices (to name just two US companies). There's also a trend towards doing just "final assembly" wherever to get the "made in"-sticker to read "friendly". This makes it very hard to know where clothes (or at least the textiles) are actually manufactured.