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Comment by chewz | Hacker News Reader

Where do you draw the line?

How about Thailand or Malaysia (as an example)? They are both fairly developed and hoping to avoid middle income trap and become developed countries within few years. In both countries disregard for enviroment and citizens health is just sad. Toxic haze, toxic water, pollution, trash.

When is the moment that a country decides that it is rich enough and it is time to clean its act?

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1643388/chiang-...

https://www.chiangraitimes.com/thailand-monks-adorn-robes-ma...

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/08/06...

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/07/13/two-incid...

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2019/07/19/incinerat...

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> In both countries disregard for enviroment and citizens health is just sad. Toxic haze, toxic water, pollution, trash.

That was trash that was illegally dumped there by UK, Australia, and other Western countries, right after China stopped accepting Western trash. https://asklegal.my/p/waste-dumping-malaysia-canada-pollutio...

You use a strong sentence "disregard for environment". What facts lead you say that? Wouldn't the behavior of the Western countries shipping trash over to poorer countries indicate a much stronger disregard for the environment? Or are you implying the environment/nature can be split into one that is local to Western countries and another that is present in developing/poorer countries?

I don't think dumping is really the right word here. As it says in the article, importers are illegally accepting the waste and making a good chunk of money from it. The private companies who are disposing of waste from Western countries are happy to pay these guys to get rid of it. Still they could try to check what happens to the waste, rather than just turning a blind eye. But when the mafia can dump nuclear waste in your own back yard, I guess it's hard to see what happens on the other side of the world to some plastic bottles...

https://gizmodo.com/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-wast...

>Where do you draw the line?

You don't. You account for those externalities all the way (until they become small enough so that further breakdown does not matter).

>When is the moment that a country decides that it is rich enough and it is time to clean its act?

If by cleaning you mean "moving it somewhere else" then it doesn't matter.

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