
U.S. asks China not to implement ban on foreign garbage - jonbaer
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-usa/u-s-asks-china-not-to-implement-ban-on-foreign-garbage-idUSKBN1GZ2WI
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mankash666
I'm usually critical of China's protectionist policies. In this case, I have
to agree with any country that's determined to protect itself from the import
of toxicities.

The US needs to find a more sustainable way to live, and generate less waste.
Additionally, it needs to deal with it's own waste

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sunstone
So Trump is saying we don't want to buy any of your tech products but please
continue to be our garbage dump. Nice.

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fspeech
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Convention](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Convention)
may be relevant.

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John_KZ
Yeah this screams to me "Please take our toxic waste, please". The cost of
dismandling/disposing them in the US would be very high, because they can't
risk human lives in the process. So far it had been working "great" for the
recycling/"safe disposal" companies, since Ghana, Philippenes, China etc are
taking the blow instead.

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nfmkkoooo
“China seemed to be breaching its WTO obligations by treating domestic and
foreign waste differently and employing an overly trade-restrictive policy,
the U.S. official said.”

It doesn’t seem like it’s asking in this case. More like restructuring the
rhetoric to make it seem China is playing unfairly.

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fspeech
Is there a WTO obligation to treat domestic and foreign waste the same? Does
any country do that? Should there be an obligation?

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hhhhjj
Not sure. But I would imagine there aren’t a lot of countries importing
foreign waste. Probably China has been the main importer of such, since I
can’t imagine other countries doing so and with such volumes. Foreign waste as
a concept shouldn’t even exist in the first place since it simply shifts
pollution elsewhere. It isn’t solving any problems other than sweeping it
under the rug, so there shouldn’t be an obligation to do so to begin with.

