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Comment by swayvil | Hacker News Reader

Capitalism destroys the environment by design. I mean the profit-and-loss equation literally works out to "sacrifice everything". Check out the coast of the Dominican Republic : https://gfycat.com/mistyacrobaticbonobo-r-sciences

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The reason you often see images like this in third world countries, but not in first world countries, is that third world countries dump a lot of their trash in waterways/the ocean compared to first world countries. Maybe you already know this, but I think a lot of people see images like this as evidence of the first world fucking over the third world when it's really a local problem.

He said nothing about third vs first world. The impact of consumerism is the same everywhere.

Well, no, the impact of consumerism is not the same everywhere - the first world has much more consumerism, but less environmental impact due to higher standards and regulations.

In many senses having an unpolluted local environment is a luxury good that many poorer communities "don't purchase" - i.e. a richer community would choose cleaner air while a poorer community would choose less restrictions on factories because they need these jobs; a richer community would implement proper wastewater treatment because they can afford to divert their resources to that infrastructure, while a poorer community would do without because they choose to spend their resources on more important things they're lacking.

The first world’s consumer goods come from the third world, and the first world trash gets “recycled” in the third world. First world is just exporting its environmental damage to the third world—and does it in a way that makes it look like it’s the third world’s fault.

Its also typical to look at a first world country with a low population and say they aren't the problem because india and china pollute way more without thinking about the fact that india and china pollute far far less per person than the people in first world countries.

And, 1st world countries dump their trash in 3rd world countries. Also, they ignore that there 1st world status is fueled by unsustainable development over last couple of centuries.

What third world company do we dump our trash in? AFAIK we sell it to them.

Recently these countries have blocked the import of the trash because it absolutely destroys these countries. The "recycling" companies buy in mountains of trash, pick out a few bits that are profitable and dump the rest somewhere. Currently only a tiny part of recyclables actually gets recycled or downcycled because the rest is cheaper to pull fresh resources out of the ground.

Yes, not only the western countries dump it in developing countries, they get money for it.

>> AFAIK we sell it to them

That implies there are other buyers who are happy to pay money to take it, doesn't it? That doesn't seem to be happening though:

https://qz.com/117151/us-states-banned-from-exporting-their-...

I suppose some countries agree to take the trash in return for some kind of economic favor from the US?

consider ocean currents

Yeah, Milton Friedman totally said this and never said a word on effluent taxes.

Dominican Republic isn't exactly a model for capitalism. It scores relatively low by Heritage Foundation Economic Freedom Index:

https://www.heritage.org/index/country/dominicanrepublic

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