Archive: 2009-02-08
The least worst option
I find the case of the toxic ship fascinating. In the rich industrialised world, we’ve often been able to pay poorer nations to take our waste. Our consumer electronics are broken up by hand in Guiyu. Our ships are pulled apart by men with basic hand-tools in Chittagong. It’s dangerous, dirty work that kills and maims and pollutes. And, of course, it’s also a source of employment and income for a great many people. But because it’s somewhere over there, we naturally don’t really concern ourselves with the damage to health or the environment. As the saying goes, don’t shit where you live. We have, in a sense, been shitting where other people live, though.