There's a new report by
the Independent Swiss Research
group, Global Initiative against
transnational organized crime.
And what they found was that
Americans not only love
using plastic and
being incredibly wasteful,
they're also smuggling plastics
to poorer countries for disposal.
So the Los Angeles Times wrote
about this, and
it's really fascinating to see how
this is taking place, right?
Because there are supposed to be
some international regulations
against this, but
smugglers are finding a way.
So building on a previous
investigation by Interpol, the new
report maps the web of brokers,
middlemen, legitimate recycling
companies and organized crime
groups that move millions of
tons of discarded plastic.
From the United States,
Europe and Australia to countries
in Southeast Asia and Africa.
So there are two things happening,
first of all, of course, you need
the wasteful countries trying to
export their junk.
They're plastic, so
that's part number one.
But then you also need
some countries that are willing to
accept it, right?
And in that regard,
there are countries that tend to
make a little bit of money by
accepting the plastics.
But in some cases there's all sorts
of tricky stuff taking place where
as the plastics are being exported
to poorer countries.
The country accepting the shipment,
it doesn't even realize until it's
too late that they accepted plastic
waste.
Okay, so I'll explain to you how
that takes place.
The report found that legitimate
recycling companies and
waste brokers have engaged in fraud
concealing shipments of banned
plastic products among other goods.
Illegally dumping them and
paying bribes to get past
inspectors exporters
have also mislabeled their cargo so
that the plastic scrap incorrectly
appears to be in compliance with
international agreements.
And I'll get to those international
agreements in just
a second disguising it from customs
officers, right?
So the labeling is an issue here,
obviously being incredibly
deceptive in what's being exported,
but there's also other tricky stuff
taking place in
regard to the routes being used
during the exporting process.
So even the shipping routes used to
move plastic waste around the world
are often designed to incorporate
multiple stops in
different countries.
So that by the time an illegal
shipment arrives at its final
destination, it's not
even clear where it came from.
This makes it difficult for
regulators in Indonesia,
Malaysia and the Philippines
countries that are making an effort
to send back banned plastic scrap
to return them to their origins.
And final point before I go to
you was,
if you look at the United States,
of course the US is an offender.
But it turns out that California is
the biggest offender,
California is especially culpable,
writes the Los Angeles Times
plastic scrap generated in
the state accounted for
nearly get this a third of all US.
Exports to developing countries
this year and is the main source of
banned plastic exports to Malaysia.
And the reason why is because of
the fact that you have the port
of Los Angeles it's the main US.
Entry point for goods both to and
from Asia and once those shipping
containers are empty,
they can be refilled with
Californians plastic scrap and
sent back across the pacific ocean
at relatively little cost.
So junk we are producing junk,
we are exporting junk and
we're expecting poor countries to
shoulder the burden was.
>> This reminds me of two things
the New York times put out a video
the other day where they said that
blue states are actually
exacerbating the crises of our
times at an accelerated rate,
right?
When it comes to housing crisis,
the sort of wage gap
between the highest earners and
the lowest homelessness.
Like you name it, it's places like
California, like Washington state
where you know the dems are in
the executive, they basically run
those state governments.
They make all the freaking rules
yet they produce horrible outcomes
and therefore,
it's hypocritical when they
go with this blue no matter who.
And you know California bay
basically being the capital of tree
hugging in America being the state.
That is the worst offender of this
is the other thing that
comes to mind is just like wow.
And also the country that these
this waste is going to I think man,
another thing that it reminds me
of as it pertains to the climate
crisis.
Is that rich countries know that
the countries that are going to be
most afflicted by it first are the
third world are poor countries and
they're basically like we'll kick
the can and figure out how to keep
them damn migrants out later.
Like it's not going to really come
to kill us first.
And so we don't really have to care
or treated like a crisis.
And so, this is a long way of
saying we're doomed [LAUGH]
>> Right I mean, look, I don't know
if you saw the exchange that
Abby Martin had with Nancy Pelosi
during this climate summit.
But she asked such a great
question, which is, hey look,
the Pentagon is one of the top
contributors to the climate crisis.
And so
you have supported increasing
the defense budget over and
over and over again.
Why aren't we discussing the impact
that the defense department has on
the climate issue?
And of course Nancy Pelosi didn't
really have much of an answer
except to say.
Well, the Pentagon sees climate
change as a national security risk
and it certainly is a national
security risk when the climate
crisis is going to and is already
leading to a migrant crisis.
And so it was her way of saying,
no, I mean we need to fund
the defense department.
So when the migrants come, we got
to find a way to fend them off,
she was pretty transparent about it
was incredible.
>> Yeah, [LAUGH] again, the crisis
is not that the planet is going to
be heating up at a ridiculously
accelerated rate.
The crisis is that these
nasty black and
brown people are disgusting and
these people will come to our
stores and just muck up the works.
I already need a shower,
I don't know about you, Anna.