Assault and battery

Chinese workers pay for our cadmium-battery habit

Posted by Tom Philpott at 8:01 AM on 16 Jan 2008

In the last 20 years, the United States has essentially dismantled its industrial base, moving production of consumer goods south to Mexico and east to Asia.

This has not only dramatically lowered the cost of goods, fueling a consumer boom; it has also helped make our economy less energy-intensive, and lowered our exposure to industrial waste.

But net gains for the environment and worker health have been imaginary. We've merely shifted the burdens of industrial production onto other lands and other people -- most recently, China.

Don't be a Cad.

Photo: iStockphoto

I think this is the most important political-ecological story of our time -- made even more urgent by the specter of climate change (since for the climate, greenhouse-gas emissions from Huizhou, China, are just as damaging as those from Pittsburgh, Penn.). And I don't know of any other publication covering it with more rigor than the Wall Street Journal.

It has been running great articles on how U.S. demand for cheap goods is triggering a surge in consumption of Chinese coal. And on Tuesday, it ran a great piece on how U.S. industry responded to the well-documented hazards of cadmium-battery manufacturing by simply moving production to China, creating a nightmare for workers there.

Here is the Journal:

Once widely manufactured in the West, [cadmium] batteries are now largely made in China, where the industry is sickening workers and poisoning the soil and water.

Europe has banned most cadmium batteries. Not so the U.S., where they're "still widely used in toys, power tools, cordless phones and other gadgets." The article is worth reading in its entirety.

For story: Assault and battery
11 Comments | Post a Comment

Good piece, Tom, more from NYTimes

that I talked about here, in which they focus on steel mills in particular. They quote a study which shows that US carbon emissions could be 30% higher if we made what we import from China. And Germany is doing the same outsourcing of pollution.

And I also remember you mentioning that you hadn't quite decided what to think about the relocalization debate on Grist -- any more thoughts?

by Jon Rynn at 10:22 AM on 16 Jan 2008

Got your back, Jon

I'm absolutely with you on relocalization. If I didn't comment on that thread, it was because I didn't have time to read through the whole thing and add my bit. But hell yes, relocalize production. I've even been re-reading Jane Jacobs' Economy of Cities.

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 11:03 AM on 16 Jan 2008

Doh! my "economy of cities" is overdue!

thanks for reminding me!

by Jon Rynn at 11:14 AM on 16 Jan 2008
[ Parent ]

Flip side of the China Story

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. ....
From today's NYT, "Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families' Way of Life Along," by Erik Eckholm:

Slammed by the continued decline in the automobile and steel businesses, Ohio never recovered from the recession of 2001-2, and blue-collar families who had made it partway up the economic ladder find themselves slipping back, with chaotic effects on families and dreams.
Throughout the state, the percentage of families living below the poverty line -- just over $20,000 for a family of four last year -- rose slightly from 14 percent in 2005 to 16 percent in 2007, one study found. But equally striking is the rise in younger working families struggling above that line. The numbers are more dismal in the southeastern Appalachian part of the state, where 32 percent of families lived below the poverty line in 2007, according to the study, and 56 percent lived with incomes less than $40,000 for a family of four.
...
One consequence is an upending of the traditional pattern, in which middle-aged children take in an elderly parent. As $15-an-hour factory jobs are replaced by $7- or $8-an-hour retail jobs, more men in their 30s and 40s are moving in with their parents or grandparents, said Cheryl Thiessen, the director of Jackson/Vinton Community Action, which runs medical, fuel and other aid programs in Jackson and Vinton Counties.
...
"A lot of major employers have left, and the town is drying up," Ms. Thiessen said of Jackson. "We're starting to lose small shops, too -- Hallmark, the jewelry and shoe stores, the movie theater and most of the grocery stores."
Shari Joos, 45, a married mother of four boys in nearby Wellston, said, "If you don't work at Wal-Mart, the only job you can get around here is in fast food."
Between her husband's factory job and her intermittent work, they made $30,000 a year in the best of times, Mrs. Joos said. Since last fall, when her husband was laid off by the Merillat cabinet factory, which downsized to one shift a day from three, keeping anywhere near that income required Mrs. Joos to take a second job. She works at a school cafeteria each weekday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m and then drives to Wal-Mart, where she relaxes in her car before starting her 2-to-10 p.m. shift at the deli counter.

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 6:57 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Re-loco

Relocalize, but move to a better, new improved line of products in the process.

Make them here and force other nations to compete. Like what happened with CFLs.

If the US market for incandescent light bulbs dissappears, China will switch to CFLs, shuttering their incandescent bulb plants. Forcing them to actually use CFLs domestically.

They have a dynamite plugin hybrid to feature during the Olympics. What is missing in that picture is that no plugin hybrids were ever manufactured here. The invention was ignored here and went straight to China for mass production.

Relocalization in the sphere of renewable transportation would best be facilitated by conversion of used vehicles with locals feeding off the old technology. Recycling electric motors and used vehicles..into plugin hybrids.

That will get the attention of larger businesses. Change from the top down, originating in the corporate boardroom and congressional gym, where lobbyists meet legislators, is not happening.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 7:33 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Why no discussion of manufacturing...

...among the candidates this election? Apparently the last presidential candidate to do so in a big way was, believe it or not, Pat Buchanan in 1992, who apparently would get standing ovations when he talked about reviving manufacturing. Even Edwards doesn't really tackle the subject, even though it seems to me that it would be a no-brainer for his flagging campaign.

The problem, I suppose, is that such a program would have to involve 1) some sort of change in trade policies -- at the very least, fair trade for environmental and labor standards, and 2) some kind of real industrial policy, a la Japan or Korea (or even China), and those go too far against the reigning ideologies. Even Edwards jets around to all the Davos-type meetings around the world, so he can't see out of the conventional wisdom either.

The decline of manufacturing has been going on for decades, but accelerated when the Carter/Reagan interest rate boosts made the dollar much more expensive, almost killing export industries. Since then, the development of container cargo and communications, and the opening up of China, has led to the slow bleed that we see most poignantly in Ohio -- and Michigan as well, on which see Jeffrey ST. Clair's piece here

by Jon Rynn at 7:53 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Michigan

Michigan is in deep trouble. The auto industry is almost completely gone. With US automakers ducking out on fuel saving re-evolution to plugin hybrids, it is not coming back.

Even if they eventually try to play catchup, they will simply have the parts made in China and mexico, and the cars assembled in the south. Eliminating any reliability from their products.

Bought a chinese made, mexican assembled appliance lately? Did it keep running past the three month waranty date? You were lucky then.

Good luck driving the product of US automakers from the same outsourced mode.

Get ready for a really GREAT depression. No one can turn this around, except american consumers. And we are all losing our jobs. Sorry, it's too late. The bushwackin' worked. Voting for a shaved chimp once was bad enough, but twice?

The shame everyone who voted for bush ought to feel. Where is it? Why do you all hate our country, our freedom, and our troops?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 8:26 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Don't diss chimps, Dr. X...

...while they have their violent tendencies, they don't have the monomaniacal desire to take over the whole planet. That's a very human tendency, unique to the species.

I'm afraid I agree that we could be heading toward a depression, or what may be worse, because of the decline of manufacturing, a permanent decline in the standard of living, a latinamericanization of the US, in the late Richard Barnet's phrase, that is, a highly skewed income distribution, big farms and resource extraction industries, a lower-middle class (by world standards) standard of living, unless we turn around the manufacturing sector. There are still a lot of highly-trained workers in Michigan, it would be a good place to start.

by Jon Rynn at 8:37 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Think UK Jon

That's true, it was an insult to chimps.

All those british comedies about their decline. That's where we are headed. But at least they have pensions and the dole.

None of that left here in a few years. Latinamericanization maybe closer to the result.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 8:51 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Yeah, UK's another model...

...they actually began to be economically "colonized" by the Germans even before WWI; their manufacturing decline has been very gradual over about 150 years. I believe that they are now virtually completely colonized in manufacturing, such as it still exists there. They have one advantage, that they are small enough that their world-class financial district in London can support a certain percentage of their economy -- but the US is much bigger, and so our financial system can only support, say, most of a NYC, but not much else.

But UK's decline was fairly slow and steady -- I just hope the US doesn't go in one big crunch, it could get very ugly, politically and economically.

by Jon Rynn at 9:13 AM on 17 Jan 2008

Opportunity

I say we look at it as an opportunity to live off the remains of the old empire, recycling it all into a sustainable culture that values quality of life over quantity of possesions and consumption.

It's the hobo way. Woody Guthrie would be proud.

We'll always have tourism, like the UK, if we can preserve our natural wonders. Other than that we can just make everything we need right here. It'll be like Siberia, but warmer.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 11:32 PM on 17 Jan 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.