[rad_gruchalski]

Right? Like those people in China who were so happy to break, split, sort and burn the plastic waste we used to send them back in the day. Why don’t they want it anymore? They should have been grateful. At least they had jobs. Otherwise who knows what they would have been doing! /s

[zizee]

This is not what the grandparent is saying. The typical situation is not that people are forced to do the work. We're not talking about slavery* here.

They are doing it because they see it as their "best option". By stopping it, the result is their "best option" is taken away from them, and they have to go do the next "best option". You could keep saying "this is inhuman, let's stop it from happening", but the effect is just making it worse and worse. Instead, better options should be provided. That's the real solution, but it's a whole lot harder to implement than the knee jerk response of stopping an activity.

edit to preempt ridiculous interpretations of my words: This is assuming slavery is not the case. If slavery is involved, it is a different situation to what i am talking about.

[rad_gruchalski]

> This is not what the grandparent is saying. The typical situation is not that people are forced to do the work. We're not talking about slavery* here.

> They are doing it because they see it as their "best option". By stopping it, the result is their "best option" is taken away from them, and they have to go do the next "best option".

Exactly. I know what the gp said. It was the same with those in China. The West didn’t force anybody in China using slavery to take that plastic. They were happily buying it. It was the “best option under given circumstances” for those who were doing it. Whole families built businesses on it.

[zizee]

Oh right, sorry! Ironically I misunderstood what you were saying :facepalm: