I have decided to stop purchasing all non-essential goods from China. Unless China is the only source for something that I need (not want), I hereby proclaim that I will no longer purchase anything that says "Made in China" on the label. Unfortunately, this will not totally prevent my consumer dollars from supporting them. In the last year, china has begun working deals with other countries to perform final assembly on many of their products. For example, all the parts of a toy can be manufactured in China; then, the parts are shipped to a factory in Mexico where they are assembled. In this instance, the toy can be stamped "Made in Mexico". However, there are plenty of items on the shelves that still say "Made in China" that I can snub.
Why would I choose to boycott the output of an entire country? Well, the list of reasons just keeps growing. In no particular order, lets tick off a few of the more obvious ones:
- Continuing human rights violations, including the subjugation of Tibet
- Food and product safety issues that effect everyone from pets, to their own people, and to people who eat their food exports or even use their toothpaste
- Their blatant disregard for the environment (40% of the air pollution in California is caused by Chinese output)
So, if you care about the environment, if you care about food/product safety, or if you care about human rights, join me in boycotting anything that says "Made in China" on it.
Perhaps tomorrow, I'll return to blogging about the mundane and globally unimportant clutter in my brain.
1 comment:
You've gone all radical on us! ;-)
I've been contemplating something similar myself. Not shopping at Wal-Mart is a good start. Remember how years back, they talked about supporting America and buying American products? Well, over 80 percent of their suppliers are based in China now.
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