The Real Price Of Cheap Goods,Drinks and Foods; Faulty Wealth In The Third World

It has been declared that everything is wonderful in a certain third world country, and that the economy is booming. The economy is supposedly growing beyond expectations. But if you are here, it is impossible not to see the mass poverty. The thousands sleeping on the streets, including babies and young children. Sure, some have it well. A few are exceptionally rich. But a huge number of people are homeless, or one small step away from homelessness. Most people live in a shack without running water, often ten to twenty in a single shack or room. Marginal employment, underemployment is rampant.It is near impossible for most to earn a living wage. The stores are well stocked with cheap, low quality foods. Plastic bags, small and large, are used everywhere. Hot foods from street vendors and restaurants are put inside of plastic bags. Cheap, low quality, nutritional absent crackers, sweets, candy, snacks, colorfully wrapped, are abundant in the stores. Every piece of candy, every wrapper, every plastic bag, small or large, has to go somewhere. But where does it goes? There is no infrastructure for organized garbage pick up except for in a very few areas. Everywhere else, in the rural areas, the countryside, most of the urban areas, the only garbage disposal system is just tossing away the wrappers and other garbage. Or in some places, burning the garbage and thereby producing a toxic plume of burnt plastic. The organized first world thinks it is unaffected by the events and actions, big and small, of the third world. But the garbage ends up washed into the sea, carried by rivers, streams. Or it is dumped directly into the seas. Garbage,plastics, chemicals are everywhere now. Consumed by the smallest of marine animals,and then worked up the food chain contaminating the largest of marine animals. Humans are affected. We have in our bodies a toxic soup of chemicals that never existed before in the history of mankind. PCP, flame retardants, pesticides, heavy metals. We pride ourselves on our technological advances, but we do not seem able to properly dispose of our garbage. We know that in the third world, there is no way to properly dispose of garbage. But this does not seem to motivate anyone to produce biodegradable wrappings. We are stuck with garbage that takes centuries, even thousands of years, to break down. Much of it will float endlessly in the oceans, causing untold damage and harm. Cheap goods,drinks and foods may make it seem like an economy is growing by the rise in consumption of these goods. But the real cost they incur, in terms of environmental damage,tooth decay, diabetes, higher cancer and heart disease rates, obesity, and a host of other medical problems, is not considered. Rising consumption does not mean rising wealth, unless one measures wealth by extremely limited, blind sided metrics. The cheap cooking oil most commonly used, palm oil, is known to harden arteries, shorten lives and cause heart disease. The long term affects of the daily consumption of palm oils and a high sugar, high salt,low fiber, nutritionally absent diet is not considered. Rising consumption does not mean real wealth and prosperity. Only the short sighted think otherwise. Cheap drinks, foods and goods comes at a heavy price.