Forums › Life › Politics, Media & Current Events › Emma Maersk – what do you think?
The Emma Maersk, currently the biggest container ship in the world , arrived at Felixstowe this weekend to offload around 3,000 ISO containers from a total loading of 13,000…
it is probably now somewhere in mainland Europe, offloading the rest of the containers to other countries..
Whilst the ship itself comes from Denmark and must have generated a lot of work for the shipyard, there is only a crew of 13 on board this ship…
The containers represent most of Europes Christmas shopping – but – virtually all the cargo is from China!
When the holiday period is over; the containers get filled up with much of the contents of Europes recycling bins; and then go back to China as the Chinese want the material to recycle for the next batch of goods!
Many greens are concerned about the effects of globalisation here – when so much stuff is made in China (perhaps not under the best conditions for workers) but at the same time the Chinese have won the fight within the market for peoples business by creating lower cost products at acceptable quality..
I actually try to buy local stuff when I can but with high tech kit its becoming impossible – even Celestion speakers are made in China now..
what do you all think about this?
I personally think there are reason for concern.
But I dont think it can change at the moment.I have seen in the news that small kids are working under terrible circumstances :hopeless: but what can they do,they have no choise,they are very poor and every pennie counts..
The parents need the money and often the father have 2-3 jobs just to be able to feed his family..
This is a very hard subject to talk about,because there are no easy solution,i cant see a way out of it..
And i cant figure out what your question really is..
Is it wrong of us to send all our junk to China ? Yes,
Can we do anything about it ? yes, but it will be very difficult
Is it terrible because it is a Danish ship ? No ,it could be from anywhere
I buy local when I can..But a lot of times the things I buy local is 3-4 times more expencive..
When you are a family with 3 kids who needs new clothes, you can’t afford to buy “Danish” design..well I can’t anyway..
As I say, it will be very difficult to change the situation..
But we should change it..
Please delete this if i have misunderstood this thread and it sounds to stupid..:hopeless:
I think you’ve explained the dilemma quite well here…
At both ends of this supply chain there are people trying to look after their families and they have essentially been forced into accepting what is on offer – either working in the Chinese sweatshops or not being able to afford locally produced goods….
a lot of the stuff on the containers doesn’t really need to be there or could be made within Europe – but at the same time people won’t or can’t pay more for certain goods and Europes manufacturing industry has totally changed, with very lean teams making large value items (such as the ship!) instead of smaller items..
also I am concerned that when we try to be “good” and recycle although its not a case of “dumping” the contents of dustbins on China (they are actually asking for the materials to be sent over there for re-use) and its better than things going to landfill I don’t think they are processed with the same safety and environmental protection conditions that apply to an EU country…
maybe its a matter of trying to consume less….. making more items out of recycled materials locally, as is sometimes done in African countries….
but at the moment people always want the brand names though….. until this attitude changes no progress can be made.
there’s a few issues here
we refuse to accept poor working conditions and see poverty within our own country as unacceptable, but depend upon exploiting the poor of the world for our goods
the environmental issue of transport on this scale is not good. but without local production our only choice is to go without.
but as oil becomes more scarce, the cost of transporting goods will make chinese products unaffordable to most in europe. we will then be left with a situation where these goods will onl be available to the most wealthy (who can pay the extra), or the most ingenious (who can improvise), as there is also a manufacturing skills shortage in europe; people do not train for these jobs because they don’t exist
even if the reuse and recycling of materials in china is not as clean as in europe, those materials are at least being reused
individually we create a great deal more harmful pollution than a chinese person, so the problem lies with our consumption patterns, more than with chinese working practices
the demand for brand labels is creating massive wealth for a handful of manipulators and depends upon exploitation of the most vulnerable people
there are social enterprises that are trying to tackle this
check blackspot shoes for example. they produce quality products, the consumers become voting members of the co-op and the profits are ploughed back into other social enterprise that utilise local materials and treat workers fairly, as well as running high profile TV campiagns on major US networks to encourage people to simply consume less
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Forums › Life › Politics, Media & Current Events › Emma Maersk – what do you think?