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bowjangles's avatar

It was mentioned that the waste management in the Philippines is 100 times worse than the UK. While this might be true , the UK exports 2/3rds of its plastic waste mostly to poorer countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. That doesn't mean good waste management, surely? It would be interesting to know how much of this illegal dumping contributes to the waste run off to the rivers and oceans. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51176312

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Norm Rubin's avatar

I like your two charities, but I think that you have ignored the elephant in the room! The obvious solution would be for rich countries like the US and Canada etc. to spend "small bucks" of tax money to improve waste management practices in the countries that are the source of the problem, starting with the Philippines. Here in Canada, we could easily save more than enough money by dropping our meaningless nuisance virtue-signaling programs to ban plastic straws and shopping bags.

The myopia that drives well-meaning people (including Justin Trudeau) to focus on the smallest parts of this problem while ignoring the largest parts seems to dwarf a similar form of myopia in the realm of abating global CO2 emissions. But at least in that field, there are vital needs that are being met by China's and India's and Africa's increases in coal-fired generation. I can see no similar needs being met when the world's rich countries sit idly by (or distract ourselves with trifles) while a few countries throw most of the world's plastic trash into the oceans.

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