Summary "In a new study, researchers found that goods made in China have much higher carbon dioxide emissions than the same products manufactured in other countries. That’s because the factories making them rely on antiquated technologies and processes and source much of their energy from heavy carbon-emitting coal-fired power plants." (takepart.com)
Cheap stuff isn't really cheap when it's costing our clean air. In China they have a higher rate of carbon dioxide emissions than in any other countries. One of the biggest factors is the large number of petrochemical plants in China. "One of the worst-polluting culprits identified was petrochemical plants, which produce propylene—the main ingredient in most plastic products—to feed growing demand from first-world countries such as the U.S."(takepart.com). It's not just the Chinese industries that are contributing to Carbon dioxide in the air. American companies like Apple assemble their products in China. Cheap products, especially the ones made in China cost our clean air to be contaminate with carbon dioxide. "I’m not so optimistic as to think altruism will drive this change,' Davis said. 'I think it has to be market driven, and since consumers will prefer affordable products, with a sound climate policy, they will hopefully be made with lower carbon emissions.'" Davis, a scientist from UC Irvine, states that while we can't reduce our consumption, we can reduce how much Carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere. |
My ReflectionI chose this article because I was curious about how much of a footprint cheap products leave on our natural resources. The most interesting part of the article is that China still uses the old methods which release a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The things I will do after reading this article will be to try to avoid products that are made in China which will be hard because everything is usually made in China. This is scary because if they are producing so much of our products, so imagine how much clean air is being contaminated with carbon dioxide.
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