Consumer Responsibility and Guilt

[L00b]

Consumers abdicate all responsibility and guilt at the confluence of price tag and convenience.

 

Practices like those in the Panorama documentary will gradually stop when consumers gradually cease to want everything for nothing (with the option of returning it for free after wearing it once...heard the latest media noises about retailers losing out to ultra-lax returns policies? profit's got to come from somewhere, far-from-the-eyes sweatshops is the easiest option).

 

Uncomfortable truth maybe, but truth all the same.

[biotechpete]

Don't believe the BBC's pro-migrant, pro-eco-nutters propaganda. Think for yourself.

 

God forbid you should take your own advice and actually have a concience about how you choose to live

 

---------- Post added 25-10-2016 at 12:03 ----------

 

Consumers abdicate all responsibility and guilt at the confluence of price tag and convenience.

 

Practices like those in the Panorama documentary will gradually stop when consumers gradually cease to want everything for nothing (with the option of returning it for free after wearing it once...heard the latest media noises about retailers losing out to ultra-lax returns policies? profit's got to come from somewhere, far-from-the-eyes sweatshops is the easiest option).

 

Uncomfortable truth maybe, but truth all the same.

 

I don't but on the whole yes they do, but should they?

[L00b]

I don't but on the whole yes they do, but should they?

It's a sterile debate, in a consumerist society with extreme variances of disposable income levels, wherein the lowest levels constitute the vast bulk of the consuming body.

 

I don't mean to shutdown the debate, pete. But I just can't see it going anywhere, never less so than on the cusp of a major inflationary balloon going up.

 

EDIT: I'd add that current political forces and sentiment in western democracies are clearly diverging from a well-meaning, interventionist style apt to curb such excesses. Expect to see more of it in years to come, regardless of how much you disagree with it at the individual level.

 

If you really want to solve this problem, then as with most ills of this world, the solution starts with educating the demand side. That will take a good while longer, sweatshops aren't exactly a new phenomenon. And this is glossing completely over market competition amongst retailers and return-on-investment imperatives by their shareholders (and the ramifications on local (retail) employment, tax contributions, etc, etc.) for the sake of simplicity.

Edited October 25, 2016 by L00b

[Robin-H]

the uk uses more carrier bags than Germany Holland france belguim and the scandanavian countries put to gether

 

That's the second time I've heard someone say that on here (I think you). Do you have any sources for that?

 

(Just checked, and last time you said it was more than Germany, France and Holland, so the inclusion of Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Denmark makes it seem even less likely..)

 

Last time I explained why I thought that was very unlikely based on recent usages figures for those countries.

 

Do you have any stats to back up that claim? It might be true, but like I say, seems rather fanciful to me..

[L00b]

Do you have any stats to back up that claim? It might be true, but like I say, seems rather fanciful to me..

Idk about the validity of the claim, but it is a fact that France introduced a small-ish € charge for supermarket 'thin' bags, and supermarkets (Leclerc, Auchan, etc.) started to promote the use of heavier-duty reusable shopping bags in parallel (just like here now), years before the UK. Plastic bags have since been banned altogether.

 

So there might be a lag effect in like-for-like year-for-year comparison figures (recent years that is, since the UK only introduced that charge relatively recently).

 

EDIT - looks like this same policy was introduced in 1993 for Switzerland, 1994 for Denmark, 2002 for Ireland, 2011 for Italy.

Edited October 25, 2016 by L00b

[Robin-H]

Idk about the validity of the claim, but it is a fact that France introduced a small-ish € charge for supermarket 'thin' bags, and supermarkets (Leclerc, Auchan, etc.) started to promote the use of heavier-duty reusable shopping bags in parallel (just like here now), for years before the UK.

 

So there might be a lag effect in like-for-like year-for-year comparison figures (recent years that is, since the UK only introduced that charge relatively recently).

 

That may well be the case, but Germany (with a population larger than the UK) only started a bag tax in July 1st this year - and previous to the bag tax they were using about 6 billion plastic bags a year.

 

Norway was very against the EU plans to make every EU member reduce their plastic bag usage (and countries like Norway that ratify EU Conventions) as they claim everyone in Norway reuses plastic bags as waste bags.

 

https://www.thelocal.no/20151006/norway-to-battle-eu-plastic-bag-tyranny

 

France and Sweden use about 80 plastic bags a year per person - that alone is over 6 billion plastic bags a year.

 

Usage in England dropped from 7 billion to an estimated 1 billion after the tax was introduced.

 

I would therefore be very surprised if Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland used the billion and billions of plastic bags it would need to in order that the UK used more than the France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden combined.

[geared]

Well quite, and isn't it the responsibility of eg the government of Bangladesh to enforce laws which mean that their children are in school, not in sweatshops. Perhaps a blockade on countries which don't do enough for their own people would force some action?

 

Doubtful, there are plenty of countries out there who would happily buy their stuff.

I doubt China or India would have any qualms, so right there thats 2.7bn perspective buyers Vs the 50 odd million we have here.

 

Not only that we'd probably end up sending aid money to the country anyway, so on the one hand we're blockading them in protest of their governments inaction but on the other hand we're dishing out free money left, right and centre because they're poor.