(12u) Waste shouldn't be dumped


Waste, often dangerous, from many rich and thus developed parts of the world, is dumped in Africa and other places. A few years ago there was a major scandal in Belgium when dioxins where found in chicken (eggs), leading to another government after the election. Now, people in Ghana are eating also dangerous eggs that contain the same toxins because the developed world dumps their electronic waste in that country.

It was to be expected that this practice whereby developed countries dumb their (dangerous) waste in other still developing countries can no longer continue. For instance, the Philippine President Duterte is warning Canada to retake its waste that it exported to the Philippines or face its anger. I think we should not take this light. And he's right, as a president, he should protect his own people. Undeveloped countries are developing and no longer accept waste from others so their own people become ill, just as people in developed countries don't accept that other countries dump waste in their country. Similar, recently China no longer accepted waste from developed countries. And, it's even in our own interest that those countries are clean as many people visit those countries during their holiday and don't want to be poisoned by their own waste.

Further, recycling is a new industry. Indeed, dump expensive waste of which some such as smartphones contain relatively rare materials in other countries and what will we do when these materials become very expensive because mines are almost empty? Indeed, we need to extract those materials from old equipment and reuse them. But also, countries that produce waste but don't recycle the materials themselves will have to pay other countries and industries to take their waste so the others can extract the materials and later sell with profit. Indeed, recycling can be big business. And different countries can specialise to recycle certain products. Often people say not everything can be recycled. I add "yet" because one day the technologies may exist and until then, yes, we may have to store those items. But, dump them and later it may be much more expensive, both on healthcare when the waste is poisonous and people become ill and to clean the areas.

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