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842 points putzdown | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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PaulHoule ◴[] No.43693275[source]
I think of environmental conflicts that disappears in the US thanks to manufacturing moving to China.

In the 1990s there were numerous manufacturing plants in the US (two on the South Hill of Ithaca alone) that were found to be contaminated with solvents like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichloroethylene

People thought it was great stuff, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get cutting grease off things after you turn them on a lathe and vapor de-greasing makes it go away just like that.

China has some of the most advanced agriculture on the planet including a "vertical farm" that can sell straw mushrooms for about $2 a pack where they are super-proud that humans only touch them with a forklift. (Contrast that to the labor-intensive mushroom farms of Pennsylvania where somebody cuts each one with a knife.)

We are pretty omnivorous (I think mealworms start with "meal") and my obsession with anime and Japan has turned into serious sinophilia but my wife and I are hesitant to eat "Chinese Food" grown in China because of widespread environment contamination, I mean they've been building up heavy metal stocks ever since Emperor Qin Shi Huang poisoned himself with mercury.

replies(2): >>43693672 #>>43693886 #
1. pjc50 ◴[] No.43693672[source]
Yeah, it's underrated how the Chinese boom just did not care for environmental impact, and because political organizing is banned the public are limited in how much they can complain about it.

It used to be a thing that people were importing massive quantities of baby formula to China because they didn't trust locally manufactured stuff.