CBC exposes fake recycling industry — but they focused on Malaysia, not Canada
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Today, let's look at a genuine piece of accountability journalism by a CBC show. I know, I can’t even believe I’m saying these words....
Four state broadcaster reporters worked on this new story:
'Canadians would be ... shocked,' expert says as Marketplace poses as fake company to expose illegal recycling"
Fumes spewed from the machinery as workers — wearing only T-shirts, sandals and no masks — at a recycling factory in northern Malaysia manually sorted through mountains of plastic scrap. (...)
The labour was "very cheap," said one businessman, as he gave a tour to undercover CBC Marketplace journalists posing as plastics brokers from a fake Canadian company.
First off, it’s insane to ship garbage halfway across the world, but it's been going on for many years. Recycling is a bit like the scam of “carbon credits.”
Virtue-signalling westerners who "recycle" their garbage don’t ask any questions. And that plastic bottle — well, it makes no sense to recycle it, in terms of net energy use, net resources, net cost. It’s more harmful to the economy, it uses more resources, to recycle it than to bury it.
But Canadian governments ship our “recycling” to Asia — although not to China anymore — and we pretend we did something green. Instead, it’s either just stored or it’s burned.
But too many people have a stake in the recycling industry — from the unionized government workers who pick up the stuff and sort the stuff, and ship the stuff; to tax collectors who get paid in a dozen ways; to the biggest profiteers of all: environmental campaigners, environment ministers, who get to pretend that they have healed the world. They’re the biggest scammers of all.
Well, miraculously, CBC’s Marketplace did a whole story about it — in Malaysia.
But why didn’t they do that here in Canada? Canadian recycling companies do this, breaking our Canadian laws. And surely Canadian politicians know about it and wink at it.
The CBC’s show bravely showed curiosity, skepticism and defiance of authority towards, uh, Malaysia. I guess it’s just too much to ask that they bring that same journalistic curiosity to Canada, the Liberal government, and the recycling scolds here.
NEXT: Our reporter Keean Bexte went to the Climate Strike march in Calgary, Alberta — where the city got its first snowfall of the year, very early! He tells me what he saw and heard.
FINALLY: Your messages to me!
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