5dmt t1_je3tpir wrote
This is how the current economic model for developing a country works, take advantage of their lack of labor laws because they don’t know any better, pollute their environment, and introduce them to plastic trinkets and western capitalism. Once they figure out they’ve been taken advantage of the company leaves for somewhere cheaper to do it over again. Except now, this developing country is left with an environmental mess they can’t clean up and their economy is fucked.
Donutkiss t1_je3ua4l wrote
That’s still loads better the alternatives
[deleted] t1_je3xzix wrote
I take meaningful objection to this. I really do. And this isn't meant as satire, and I'm not trying to minimize the situation either.
Western corporations absolutely do swoop in, take advantage of loose regulation, advantageous access to leaders, cheap labor and the rest to get the best deal they can get. And they do calculate about where to go for it. There was a paper I read years ago by western corporate interests discussing where to migrate their production now that coastal chinese labor had gotten too expensive.
But the majority of the environmental damage that goes on (or that went on in China, for example) isn't like coming out of an Intel Corp. factory pipe into the water table. It's a lack of government regulation and it's domestic businesses - willing to cut corners to make a buck with the new opportunities that western companies represent - doing it themselves. There are criticisms to levy at the west for that; they're putting a bunch of money and technology that people don't understand into the hands of people who see a chance for advantage and they're ruining their own environment. It's terrible and we should worry about it - but it isn't some nebulous plot by the west to go in and pollute a lake, etc.
5dmt t1_jebbi4x wrote
> It’s a lack of government regulation and it’s domestic businesses - willing to cut corners to make a buck with the new opportunities that western companies represent - doing it themselves.
So it’s their own fault for not knowing any better and not having regulations in place for pollution from industry they have no experience with? I see.
[deleted] t1_jebfevw wrote
Plastic recycling in Hunan province. All the plastic recycling from the West used to get bought by China. What they were doing with it, was sending it to Hunan province, where small scale plastic recycling would basically spring up in people's kitchens. You can imagine a big pot of toxic chemicals and people throwing plastic in in some medieval act to get out fresh plastic. The tailings would be sent into nearby waterways like the rest of their water waste.
For years this went on and no one really knew about it. People started mysteriously dying, and then younger people started mysteriously dying the same way: people in their 70s, then people in their 60s, etc, down to the 30s and 40s. Eventually an investigating doctor figured out they were dying from strokes, due to exposure to these plasticizers that were getting into their water table. The government covered it up for a while.
This is an instance of some Chinese, in a system without institutional oversight or accountability, seeing a money-making opportunity, got themselves into trouble.
An iphone plant that needs a source of iron. A tire plant that needs industrial lubricants. There's a point in the distribution of the supply chain where work and products move from the international corporations to domestic suppliers. The oversight of those suppliers is often lacking - it's nonexistent, they buy off regulators, they forge certifications. Apple can't inspect every upstream supplier from pig to sausage, because material production touches too many aspects of their society.
But let's say Apple's really good and they check every box and verify every supplier. Apple's been in China a number of years...Xiaomi springs up to offer competitor phones. Xiaomi is a domestic producer. They need all the same chips, all the same boards, all the same screens. But maybe they don't go through the exhaustive verification process of their supply chain, and the cycle continues.
The Apple/Xiaomi example is fictitious, but it is just an example of how these things get out of hand. There are effort to introduce corporate accountability for this stuff, and it's getting better. But it's always going to be a problem.
Now, that's not to say we're faultless in all this. It's a profound issue. If you want an example that will keep you up at night, look up the open-air e-waste dumps in Ghana.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr1zQrXM_7s
But there are intermediary points in development that are hard to get right, even with the best intentions, and in a society where corruption is the norm, and cultural understanding of environmental costs is low, there will always be ways it goes sideways.
washington_jefferson t1_je40cgb wrote
Exactly. Even gas company plants (e.g. Exxon) in areas like Africa are well built and don't pollute into the surrounding environments. Their facilities are insanely expensive and efficient. People just hate global corporations and will always say "they are ruining the environment!" Always.
Lauris024 t1_je4jvih wrote
People will cry/hate, period. If they don't dig for oil there, then instead people will be crying about more expensive gas
Sonofabiach t1_je3wh60 wrote
So a dollar a day and a porcelain toilet after 10 yrs
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