ACORN

[--Pete]

Hi,

... but you already confirmed what I said, so what proof do you need?

We clearly have a case of miscommunication here, so let me clarify. You posted:

I will comment on the following, though.

"Most industrial countries have stringent environmental laws. Most developing countries do not.
Most industrial countries have stringent worker safety laws. Most developing countries do not."

Let's see how we deal with this 'unfair' situation, for example regarding Mercury. It's a poisonous and volatile liquid in pure form, and has to be dealt with under strict and costly regulations, here. So, we dump our Mercury containing waste in countries like Bangla-Desh, telling them they can make a profit by recollecting that precious metal, and create 'recycling industry jobs'. That way, we can keep our own country clean and help in their development, at the same time, isn't it? However, we don't tell them in advance how expensive the proper equipment will be. They end up doing it by manual (child) labour in open air, and the result is a lot of sick people over there, and a ruined soil. Sure, you can blame them for taking the deal, but did anyone really expect them to prefer starvation?

Now, there are two parts to your post. There is the factual part, that the industrial nations ship a lot of their waste to third world countries for recycling, that much of this waste is toxic, and that the third world countries often do not have the safety procedures in place to handle the waste thus causing damage to the workers who are often underage. None of these do I disagree with, for they are all commonly know facts.

It is the other part, the implication that somehow this is the fault of the industrial nations, that some "we" has this big conspiracy to poison the children of Bangladesh, that I take exception to. Now, if this implication was unintentional, perhaps due to your uncertainty in the nuances of English, then I apologize for misunderstanding you and jumping to the conclusion that you were making a political, in addition to a factual, statement. But if my interpretation of your statement is correct, then I repeat, prove it. Not that the third world countries are processing the waste, for that's a given, but that there is some kind of intentional malfeasance behind it all.

--Pete