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some thoughts about job loss and environmental impacts when purchasing goods from foreign markets...add yours

i want to thank ken blanchette for penning some most intelligent thoughts about job loss, invironmental impact, product safety and public health. he e'd me in re a post i made from an e mail for 'spike' another pbher

this not only applies to colombia, but everywhere, world wide. we're digging our own grave, exporting our livelyhood and poisoning ourselves:

"Hi Douglas, I hope you are good! I think you are pining for Colombia now; you are probably about the most active member of PBH in terms of posts made and responses but I must say they are all of value! We need some common sense on the site after all!

The main article from your contact Spike was interesting and it reminds me of an initiative in Britain during the "60's-70's" era like "Backing Britain", "Buy British" etc. It worked for a while because people could see the logic in it all, until of course there was the invasion of electrical goods and cars from Japan with same/better quality and reliability but significantly less costs to the consumer. Then we became short-sightedly selfish, forgot about our industries to a certain extent, buying more and more foreign products. So we started to lose our traditional companies, like Morris/Bedford/Austin/Rover and now the famous mini for example is no longer made there. Even Rolls Royce is not really British anymore! Apparently this week, the last factory producing televisions in the UK has now closed down and we invented the bloody things! We closed down our coal mines in the 80's and 90's, leaving many traditional communities in ruins. We invented the hovercraft but did not have the forsight to invest properly in it, so they were no longer made in the UK either. Most of our ship-yards have disappeared! How are people going to earn a sensible wage? I could go on and on but it is worrying that "Great Britain" has never been great as such (Queen Victoria probably enjoyed the best era) and now never will be! If Great was supposed to be due to its land mass, that is a joke as well when you observe a map of the world that is in proportion!

The other item, regarding Chinese food products is something that I also find of interest and to be fair to China, they are not the only culprits.
In history, China was at one time among the most advanced of cultures; after years of oppression it has fallen to pieces. They are trying to grow up too quickly and without the necessary environmental controls to go with it. One feels that the expression "quality control" does not really exist there. It does not surprise me that they are poisoning themselves and others, without realizing it. Similar happenings in Chile and other "so called Third World Countries" where foreign companies exploit the land for its minerals and do not clean up as they would be forced to in their own lands. Mineral extractions using acids and alkalies to solublize the unwanted but dangerous components and afterwards they enter the rivers, the sea, our world! Many of these metallic contaminants are cumulative poisons that start at the bottom of the food chain and work their ways up. We are one of the species at the top of that pyramid, so we become victims of our own foul-doing! I would not eat anything from the Chilean coast now. The world should have learnt something after the "Mercury in Japonese Tuna" saga, but it has not!

Going back to Chinese trash. In the eighties, the laboratory that I was working for often did chemical analyses on toys and "gift-type" articles from there. If the importer was a responsible sort, he would obtain a certificate of clearance from the government Environmental Health department to say that it was fit for distribution into the sales network. I remember analyzing toys meant for small children for the quantities of heavy metals; both total quantities and "leachable", ie readily soluble under standard extraction procedures. I was shocked to discover that the majority of these toys failed the government guidelines with flying colours. Percent levels for total levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, tin, barium and selenium. High extractable levels of the same. I was so disturbed by it all that in my own time (I was enthusiastic in those days) I investigated these things further and quite often these nasties were present as pigments within the paints, lovely for children that tend to chew anything in sight! Also, quite often they were compounds of these metals used as the filler within the plastics. Perhaps I should have published it but I was in London and I did not fancy a run-in with the Triads. My boss also reminded me of the confidentiality of our work! What worried me most was to what extent did these goods enter the black market, when all controls would have been lost.
To sum it up, I hate buying anything Chinese. What is disturbing in Colombia is the amount of this muck that is for sale here. Cheap, tacky, cheerful AND dangerous but who knows about these things? I saw recently some cosmetics/creams that somebody was selling. The white pigment was a Lead compound, similar to that which used to be in paints in the UK-but 50+ years ago I must add!"

and when i asked permission to post it, he penned this:

"Good morning Douglas!

Always good to hear from you and hopefully one day we will have the opportunity of meeting and sharing a few beers (whilst you watch me puff?)

Many thanks for your very complementary comments regarding my comments/ramblings on jobs and environmental/health issues. Personally, I think it was more a case of me spewing out some thoughts on a few things that I find worrying rather than a mini-thesis. If I had had a few days to put something more structured together then I would have written it more formally and also included subjects such as waste management in Colombia and other Third World countries, recycling, general topics re man's impact on the environment etc along with the exploitation of these people (low wages, poor working conditions) in order that the companies can continue to reduce the competitiveness of our own industries. Also, the way that US and European countries take advantage of Third World Countries in terms of taking advantage of the weaker and not-properly-enforced laws regarding their waste and environmental protection management, thus the pollution problems that result. Re the latter, the risk assessments and health and safety and quality control issues involved in our manufacturing industries probably add 30-50% to the prices of goods before we even start talking about the salaries of employees and the facilities that need to be provided to them-no wonder these countries, like China, can continue to murder our industries. As for environmental issues, I have often written things relating to Colombia but even among the PBH population, I do not think that my observations are of that great an interest to the majority. Third World Philosophy seems to be "make and sell now, pay later" in terms of indirect costs to human beings and the environment! One only has to look at the difficulty in terms of major powers coming to agreements over reducing "greenhouse gas" emmisions and the poor targets being set in terms of percentages and time-spans.
Why? Because traditionally we have become used to utilizing massive quantities of fossil fuels, we invented the internal combustion engines! In a safer, more stable world, nuclear power is the answer but I am in fear of it during this unstable era of our history. North Korea, Iran, Iraq, so many to whom we hold suspicion over their motives, but can we be trusted in the long-term?" thus he. thank you ken

now many of you have thoughts on this and all are pertinent/valuable, cause as the status quo sits now, we're burying ourselves and poisoning our world and killing ourselves by our own hands and failure to act. so speak up.
douglas

By dwmte7 on Aug 31, 2009, 10:48 in Friendly Talkzone.

kenblanquito says on Aug 31, 2009, 11:04:

Douglas-I reckon this blanquito is a bit crazy and obsessive but he does care about our world!

0 funny, 0 helpful.

dwmte7 says on Aug 31, 2009, 13:20:

it's visible, and i thank you. and i believe anyone taking the time to read it will thank you as well. it was a pleasat surprise to find it in my inbox. thanks again.
d

patriarch

0 funny, 0 helpful.

kenblanquito says on Aug 31, 2009, 13:34:

Always a pleasure Douglas and I try to take the trouble to write to others, particularly when they go to some trouble themselves, as you do! Send me more such articles and I will reply; only trouble will be that Mrs blanquito will be totally correct in saying that I spend too much time playing with the computer. But it is better than vegetating completely; reactivating a few of those old brain cells of mine, or at least trying. "Retirement" does not really suit me yet!! Besides, she cannot moan that I am gaining weight by doing this: in fact if I hit the streets more often than I do, I will lose more. And I eat well and consume alcohol too!

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