Trade in contaminated materials

[smartarse]

Earlier this month Time Magazine put out it's "Hero's of the Environment" edition, which usually has some silly choices of people associated with fads (this year is no exception - Cameron Diaz seriously?!).

But there are always some good ones, and this year they choose to highlight one of my favourite issues - the shipbreaking industry in Asia.

If you've never heard of it, check it out. Its a really interesting and difficult issue for 'economics versus the environment' debates.

www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1924149_1924153_1924207,00.html

[McGreevy]

I confess I had not heard of that issue, but it does sound very interesting.

One thing the article didn't mention was more specific to Bangladesh, and that is how prominent the effects of global warming are going to be on the nation. Assuming that, without knowledge of Bangladeshi taxation, some revenue flowing into the country is better than none at all, one wonders then if the country needs this business to help it prepare the citizens for a tough future. It sounds like killing the environment to save the environment, but its just a thought.

I was not aware of how prevalent child workers were in Bangladesh (but, to be honest, I am not too familiar with any countries child worker rates). Wouldn't international law prevent businesses sending ships there whilst sanctioning Bangladesh to stop this, or is child labour an issue confined to national governments only?

[smartarse]

Child Labour is a whole another thread, but in brief the response to your very reasonable questions are:

*Child Labour is a matter of definition and different countries differ. But in terms of international agreements the most famous and widely acceded to is ILO convention 182 on the Prohibition of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, the title of which pretty much tells you what its about.

ILO C182 is not meant to be acceptance of child labour by signitories (esp Western nations) but merely a focus on eliminating the most exploititive and dangerous activities (i.e. working in mines, working with dangerous equipment, etc).

Ship breaking would most likely qualify as a "worst form" because of the exposure to hazardous chemicals and use of equipment without proper safety devices. So in that case the labour would be 'illegal' - which is why the article refers to fact that few if any of the ship breaking companies are properly registered in Bangladesh.

But this brings us to the standard dilemna in debates about child labour - how much do Western companies/governments know about contractors and sub-contractors in developing countries? and how much SHOULD they know?

The standard response is that they can't know. The burden of monitoring compliance with standards is too high for a company on the other side of the world (i.e. when you buy something on ebay from China it is extremely difficult for you to check that it wasn't made by child labour, and similarlly when a western company sells something - like a ship hulk - to china, its hard to track labour standards).

There is a rebuttal to this beyond the usual "well they should", which is that acutally they can, and there is precedent in environmental accreditation - its called 'chain of custody' schemes. An example of that is what's called FSC accreditation - www.fsc.org/134.html basically it means that a product cannot have the FSC logo (which is the environmental equivolent the Heart Foundation 'tick', its a popular marketing tool) unless every step in the supply chain can prove that they managed the product appropriately.

So for example, in order of a ream of printer paper to have the FSC logo, every step of the production of the paper must meet FSC accreditation - the forest the wood comes from and the methods of logging must be accredited, then the pulp mill and the paper production techniques must meet other standards. And the whole supply chain is regularly audited by independant monitors to ensure that the processes are consistent over time. Its quite onerous but the logo is quite a valuable marketing tool.

If any one part of the supply chain fails the test, then none of the parts can use the logo. So even the logging operation is 100% sustainable, if the pulp mill mixes wood from different sources to make paper you can't use the FSC logo - you can't even explictly say that your wood is FSC but not all the paper is not made with it is. its one for all and all for one

Anyway, the point is that when companies are properly motivated (by a combination of environmental concern and marketing advantage) they can and will invest in intrusive accrediation of not just their systems, but other contractors in their chain of supply. How you provide that incentive more widely is a different question, but criminal sanctions for directors is one model i've run from time to time.