ChinaDialogue: Latest responses to Waste exports: the underside of globalisation

[TRANSLATED] Panda

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:39:09 -0400

to Comment 8: Hello, I'm a Chinese student in New Zealand. I'd like to go camping and hiking whenever I have time, as the nature in New Zealand really looks great. There are two locals living together with me. They told me that the waste that can't be processed by New Zealand are shipped to China. People are doing this, although this type of waste shipment is clearly forbidden by the law....:( btw, may I ask whether Andrew Stevenson is the author of Kiwi Tracks?

[TRANSLATED] Look big

Wed, 16 May 2007 00:32:48 -0400

I am a chinese uni student, i love china, but no more than the planet im living on;i would love china to be clean and green, but i want the whole earth to be clean and green even more.. despite all the "whos taking adevantage of whom" "pros and cons of globlisation" bla bla bla debates, who is really thinking about the enviornment or the globe other than money and politics???? let me put it this way, yes, maybe china is getting polluted rapidly, but at least she is reducing a huge amount of rubbish that was supposed to be dumped in the ocean. who cares if its the UK's ocean, or the States' ocean. in the end its OUR ocean!!!!!!!! im not saying other countries should ship their rubbish to china so they can have a cleaner country. but come on, if china is cleaning up the world and making some money at the same time, then why not? why do we have to make the problem so complicated?????? maybe im just young and dumb, but thats what i think anyway

Shared responsibilities for waste trade

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 08:50:44 -0400

International regulations distinguish between hazardous and non-hazardous waste. Under the Basel Convention, hazardous waste exports from developed (OECD) countries to developing (non-OECD) countries, including China, are banned. Tackling the issue of trade in both types of waste requires that three conditions are satisfied. One, developed and developing countries must ensure that their corporations are held to account for environmentally destructive actions no matter where they occur. This could be done internationally (binding code of conduct for transnational corporations; but this is politically unlikely, given the power of the corporate lobby) or by national legislation. Two, international rules governing hazardous waste trade need to be tightened - for example, clarifying the legal status of the international ban on hazardous waste shipments under the Basel Convention (the Ban Amendment), and extending controls over e-waste and shipbreaking. Three, China needs to improve its regulation of non-hazardous waste processing at home, and put far more emphasis on environmental considerations when sourcing resources abroad. Both will require accepting higher costs and potential losses to business competitors, in return for huge but diffuse health and environmental benefits. It remains to be seen whether either the Chinese government or public is willing to strike this deal. - Andrew Stevenson

[TRANSLATED] Long Chain and Carbon Trade

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:09:39 -0500

If decomposing the long chain of waste trading and analyzing each one of the components, we will find that all stakeholders should claim responsible for this result. It is globalisation and institutional differences that brought in the reallocating flow of resources. It is way more complicated than the interpretation of "being national and emotional". Problem solving should start from institutional factors and the design of incentive policies. Actually waste (or, an alternative resource) trading is parallel to carbon trading in a sense. The CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) under Kyoto is also a reflection of the existing differences on institutions and abatement costs of CO2 across different countries. It strives to follow the win-win approach under the supervision of UN and to shift the mitigation responsibilities from high-cost advanced economies to low-cost developing countries. How can CDM get so much support from the UN and its member countries? Good at making it harmless?

[TRANSLATED] Repond to comment 4

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:47:57 -0500

You did not get the idea of the author. In fact, no matter in China or in the West, executives are not free to act because at most time they behave in an irresponsible way, so related laws are needed to regulate their work. In the international trash trade, the lack of international regulations causes the irresponsible businesses conducted by western executives overseas. Although recycling creates jobs and it brings in short-term profits (for developing countries), it has huge negative impacts on the development of those nations. Those encouraging trash trade do not really care for these people’s long-term well-being at all. Emphasizing short-term benefits is actually a hypocritical act. The article says that the gap between the systems cannot be filled shortly, so international efforts are needed to enhance regulations. Under current situation, to strengthen international relations is one of the practical approaches to help reduce the impacts on developing countries by trash imports from the West. People who really care for the environment protection should strive to build international rules to regulate the trash trade.

Blaming western green laws

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 19:16:46 -0500

The article's auther goes so far as to claim that the UK's tougher environmental laws force companies to dump waste overseas and not reprocess it at home. Utter rubbish, it is the bottom line that forces UK and western companies in general to do this. Recycling, though unglamorous, still creates jobs, thus creating more tax revenue and increasing consumer spending in a developing country. Perhaps if developing countries made waste disposal fees painfully high, they could increase revenue, reduce total waste inflow and still have access to cheap sources of raw materials that are brought to their country as waste. These writers come from countries where executives aren't free to act so they can't understand that western managers don't need to ask their gov't to do things outside of their countries' borders. nanheyangrouchuan

[TRANSLATED] Global commoditisation

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 01:57:31 -0500

Without a world surveillance structure, economic globalisation will cause unexpected disasters. Setting up such a surveillance structure is the responsibility of developed countries, which are exactly those, who gain from the waste trade, either directly or indirectly. -fying

[TRANSLATED] Not only England

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:44:29 -0500

In connection with China’s foreign trade in waste, we should remember that it is not only England. No matter which form the invasion takes on, all of them are comparable to those led by the Eight-Nation Alliance. It is one group pitched against another; the more advanced against those lagging behind; developed versus developing nations.

[TRANSLATED] A very in-depth analysis

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:42:47 -0500

Indeed, waste trade is not only a matter of who wrongs. Reasons behind each position are extremely complicated. And Mr Tang’s untangling thereof, is very thorough.

Waste and China's global footprint

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:24:05 -0500

I advise readers to look at Andrew Leonard's interesting point on Salon.com here , which links the global waste trade to China's quest for resources overseas. He says that Hao Tang's article complicates the simple nationalism of Gaoming Jiang's recent column on chinadialogue, and raises questions about unregulated, globalised trade. The question he then raises is: how does this affect our view on China's often under-regulated trade with Africa? -SL