US pulling a fast one with its waste claims

Does China have an obligation to import and treat the solid waste of other countries?

When a US representative at the World Trade Organization Council for Trade in Goods on Friday expressed concerns that China's ban on imports of solid waste could cause a fundamental disruption in global supply chains for scrap materials, he must have forgotten his country claims to be dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Instead of trying to suggest that China is acting selfishly, it is the developed nations such as the United States that should have a guilty conscience for acting purely out of their own self-interest. For being unwilling to pay the costs of processing their hazardous waste themselves, the developed countries have exported it to China - and other developing countries - which has caused untold damage to its environment and led to Chinese workers contracting serious diseases from sorting and treating the waste.