Global dumping ground

 
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Early in the twentieth century the United States being the world's hub of technological development launched new factories and plants producing industrial and household appliances. The domestic consumption market was rapidly expanding and blooming, but soon it became too crowded and required more room. However not all countries had a population wealthy enough to buy the wonders of technology. The market is not infinite, one can’t produce for stock, cakes (products) must be sold hot.
Before the First World War the US financial tycoons managed to realize their old dream: to lay their hands on the dollar printing press to supply money for the banks of their group. Those banks belonged to something like fifty families of owners and co-owners.
The former residents of the White House had always opposed this idea. But a lucky strike helped the matters along­ – someone shot the sitting president. And the vice-president who temporarily took his place transferred all the rights to print paper dollars to these oligarchs. They established the FRS LLC (US Federal Reserve System). Their own money, their own banks, their own production - what else can one dream of? Only about expanding markets and footprints. Like in Pushkin’s fairy-tale: "Keeree-kookoo!  Reign abed, your guard is true."
Soon the First World War broke out. It required a large-scale manufacturing of modern military equipment, and the United States took the lead there. Customers paid any amount of cash without bargaining. Military industrial production (MIC) grew by leaps and bounds. Easy money, like a strong drug, went to the heads of the MIC owners for good. They leeched not only on the US budget, but on many countries that needed arms. For example, Russia kept on paying off to the United States the Soviet lend-lease debt until 2006 – a huge amount of money.
In the first years of World War II about 200,000 Studebaker trucks were delivered to Russia and the famous Katyusha rocket launchers were mounted on them. On the other hand, the well-known Henry Ford was thick with the F;hrer and financed the construction of an automobile plant in Germany. Profit is above all.
War production has always been a rush-rush business in all countries; all the waste products were drained and dumped near the facilities without any restrictions on the pretext that war would justify everything. Liquid production wastes were poured into nearby water bodies, flue gases went out of the chimneys, solid wastes were simply dumped onto unused land. All this was legally allowed. Whoever produces the most dumps the most waste. And here, coincidentally, the USA is ahead of the curve.
This continued routinely even after the war. Business and the Fed were so engrossed in making profit that they were very surprised when fish surfaced in bulk in the bay. Hollywood quickly shot a movie – The Day the Fish Came Out. The people heard the word "ecology" and saw a nightmarish picture with a heap of dead fish. But the understanding had not yet come that that was not just rotten food, but the future of the human race.
    In the next elections of the new US President all candidates kept chanting the word ecology. The people were prepared by then to hear that word, and every candidate wanted to become President. Everyone talked, but did nothing so far. The word did not promise profit, it rather required expenses, and very sizeable ones.
In the late eighties, several US university laboratories drew up an unofficial list of environmentally hazardous facilities. It contained over 12 thousand items. Eco movements sprang up here and there, various states began to adopt prohibition laws. New environmentally dangerous industries without adequate treatment facilities were shifted to poorer countries. Initially, environmentally polluting industries were exported to other countries under the guise of creating new jobs. But after a series of accidents the factories were closed down, but the toxic waste was left where it was.
These are the problems of those who hankered for dirty investments. But these problems persist inside the United States, too. It is unrealistic to clean up old garbage dumps, even for the American economy. The entire GDP would not suffice. Therefore, only sites where the looming catastrophe is round the corner are attended to.
Now entire shiploads of garbage and waste are exported to countries that still accept it. This is a coercive choice, of course.
   Ecologists call the Atacama desert the world's garbage dump now. It is in northern Chile and considered to be the driest nonpolar place in the world. Sandy, rocky, with an area of about 105 thousand square kilometers. Very ancient, believed to be over 20 million years old. A giant garbage dump has been formed and is still growing in this barren region. Ships from the US, Europe, China and other countries are unloaded at the nearest port.
    They import old cars under the guise of used ones, household appliances and other unsold items. Some are resold in South America, but a large proportion ends up in landfill. The largest part of household waste is clothing. About 60 thousand tons of it is imported annually, about one-third is bought up, the rest is landfilled. Mountains of discarded clothes that are out of fashion or simply not wanted. Most part of synthetic fabrics are not biodegradable. The poorest people are looking for things there that they cannot afford.
Synthetics take over 200 years, tentatively, to decompose. In 200 years, a dry desert can turn into a rainy one, which is already happening in places. The critical mass of garbage on our planet is growing exponentially.
We must not forget that not only uranium has a critical mass. All materials have it, events have it, and the nature of our planet has it, too. Reaching the critical mass always results in an explosion. We can't bring it up to this! All garbage must be recycled and recyclables should always be in circulation. Otherwise, the planet, like a living organism, will die. And we – orthograde bipeds – are only a small part of its biological life, but we litter the most.
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