"Not everyone agrees that it is wrong to export dirty jobs to developing countries. Lawrence H. Summers, the World Bank’s chief economist, wrote in a 1991 memorandum that the World Bank should be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to developing countries. First, Summers reasoned that a given amount of health-impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost and wages, since the costs of pollution should be measured by the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. Second, Summers argued that African countries with low population numbers are “under-polluted,” which means that initial increases in pollution would have a lower cost. Third, Summers wrote that only those with high enough incomes would care about a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons. Summers essentially argues that it is economically efficient for poor countries to accept dirty jobs, such as e-waste recycling."

Meta-Actor: Scientific Community

Source Document: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1129&context=njihr

Date: 2012

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ISRI: The main opposition for the bill is currently coming from the private sector. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI) is a trade association comprised of over 1,600 manufacturing and processing companies. In 2010, the ISRI Board of Directors adopted a recycling export policy similar to H.R. 2284 with the exception of “free trade” of hazardous substances. The Institute claims the bill will deter domestic job creation as well as shutting down foreign efforts to create a green economy, however, their real interest lies in protecting the export businesses of their members"

Meta-Actor: Scientific Community

Source Document: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~regoism/Champ/Writing_Samples_files/Issue%20Network%20Paper.pdf

Date: October 21, 2011

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"“Scrap dealers argue that in some cases, the scrap going to China would be of no use to Americans because it would cost too much to sort into its various parts. But with China's cheap labor, that effort is affordable. ‘We send everything to China,’ said Danny C. Yiu, vice president of Ekco Metals... ‘'They will use chisels, hammers, hand tools to break this apart and sort it out.'”"

Meta-Actor: Government

Source Document: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/13/business/china-s-need-for-metal-keeps-us-scrap-dealers-scrounging.html?_r=0

Date: March 13, 2004

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"Vandell Norwood, owner of Corona Visions, a recycling company in San Antonio, Texas, remembers when foreign scrap brokers began trolling for electronics to ship to China. Today he opposes the practice, but then it struck him and many other recyclers as a win-win situation. “They said this stuff was all going to get recycled and put back into use,” Norwood remembers brokers assuring him. “It seemed environmentally responsible. And it was profitable, because I was getting paid to have it taken off my hands.” Huge volumes of scrap electronics were shipped out, and the profits rolled in."

Meta-Actor: Journalism

Source Document: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2008-01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text3.html

Date: January 2008