Brian, you are the oddest liberal I’ve ever known. Do you honestly not care about how this type of waste — tossing out perfectly good Corian countertops and buying imported granite mined from the other side of the globe — affects our environment?
Fair trade that takes into account labor and environmental effects is good, but fair trade that only seeks to exploit weaker labor and environmental regulations is not.
We should import things when other countries have a natural advantage (like tea from China, or bananas from South America, etc.), or where their workers produce a genuinely superior product (German/Swiss engineered products, or Japanese cars, for example); but we should always expect these countries to treat their workers and well and to use the least environmentally damaging means to harvest, mine and produce their products.
We need to do everything possible to protect our planet and its inhabitants. Profit is never an excuse to exploit more vulnerable people and their resources.
