Misstropolis

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Without “Made in China” it’s a Long but Illuminating Year

by Susan Graage

Email to a friendPrint this article

Inspired by a Wall Street Journal article about an American mom who went China-free for Christmas (written before the poisonous pet food and lethal toys scandals,) journalist Sara Bongiorni decided to follow suit. After surveying the wreckage of her own bacchanalian Noel, full of cheap toys, electronic gadgets and mountains of disposable apparel, she not only vowed to abstain, but upped the ante from one holiday to one (ultimately very long) year.

A Year Without “Made in China”: One Family’s True Life Adventure with the Global Economy is the account of her year. Bloomberg News called it “a wry look at the ingenuity it takes to shun the planet’s fastest-growing economy.” As an experienced journalist, Bongiorni was motivated by moral opposition to human rights abuses and unsafe labor laws. As a mother of two, she was driven by the way ultra-low prices feed America’s insatiable hunger for disposable crap. Bongiorni asked her family to make the sacrifice with her, a gargantuan request considering it meant her two preschoolers would do without light sabers, remote control vehicles, holiday decorations, batteries, sneakers, and other trinkets for puncturing bare feet. As for Bongiorni and her husband, they would have to go without new small appliances, printer cartridges, lamps, cheap sunglasses… oh how the list went on.

There was some cheating; Bongiorni allowed purchases of items from Hong Kong and Macau (sorry Sara, even George Bush knows they are both ruled by China now) and also accepted Chinese gifts and hand-me-downs. Her adult friends mocked her, sure that she would cave. She also quickly discovered that it could be difficult to explain or justify the boycott, particularly to her children. They often inadvertently understood the boycott in xenophobic terms, clearly not the message she was hoping for. Still, Bongoirni pressed on, buoyed by a strange sense of self importance. “I began to fall in love with myself over the idea of the boycott,” she writes, “and not just a little. I may seem the same on the outside, cheerful and modest, as my mother has trained me to be, but on the inside I am as insufferable as a starlet.”

Biongiorni says she was often asked why she had singled out China rather than boycotting goods from other countries with equally suspect human rights and labor practices. Human rights abuses were but one issue driving her cause she explains, the other was her disgust with our society’s over-consumption of useless electronic gadgetry. In that last regard, China’s production preeminence is clearly unsurpassed.

One of the few distinct upsides was the elimination of impulse buys: “…the boycott gave us a discipline that we had lacked as consumers. It was a satisfying experiment. In an unexpected way it made our trips to the mall and the supermarket meaningful, even at times fun.” The boycott also highlighted the disposability of everyday electronic objects in contemporary society – when a DVD player costs $29 – less than some DVDs to play on it – why even consider repairing the old one?

Readers might go a little further than Bongiorni and contemplate the important question of where these discarded items, with their not insignificant amounts of toxic materials and hazardous waste, ultimately go. Not surprisingly, the U.S. actually exports a huge amount of “electronics/home appliance waste” to…yep, China. There, workers can extract what is still useful while being exposed to materials like mercury, lead, and cadmium for $1.50 a day. (The Onion did a parody of this industrial disgrace entitled “Chinese Factory Worker Can’t Believe the Shit He Makes for Americans”).

Bongiorni’s book is but one illustration of a number of experiments in sustainable living that are now underway, including those of No Impact Man a Manhattan writer determined to make no garbage and eat only locally, and the Green Guru, a sustainable living expert who lives “off the grid” (the electrical grid that is).

The takeaway for me was that it all boils down to personal choices – we can be more and more selective about what we buy and focus on what one actually needs, even a little background research can produce information about how a product came to market, and how it will ultimately be absorbed into the ecology.  It is our children’s planet after all. The sacrifices are worth it.