Sure it could be worse but it could be far better too. Containing this kind of pollution needs to be set as a priority for the tech industry. The fact that companies like Apple, Google, Foxconn and Samsung among others are making grotesque amounts of money as this is happening simultaneously is truly disturbing. It would probably take only a fraction of their profits to at least partially yet substantially deal with this problem but instead future generations will be footed the bill.
No. The problem with making it "the responsibility of the supplier" is that we are both offloading responsibility and then unwilling to pay the price for the proper handling of the waste.
So basically along with really low prices, the supplier is bundling a free absolution of our guilts along with their pollution! Ain't that grand.
Yes, it should be the responsibility of the supplier. That's how every other balanced system works in economics. You only have issues when there is moral hazard when someone is allowed to shirk their responsibility. Trying to have someone downstream make up for it is a fool's errand.
In this case, the supplier should be required to put up collateral or purchase some kind of cleanup insurance for cleanup. i.e. there needs to be a basic regulation from the government on land granted to mining.
The earth is not gigantic. It's tiny and it's also the only one we have. If this was an isolated case then maybe I would agree that it could be let slide but the effect humans are having on the environment is unprecedented and causing a mass extinction. There is no excuse for this kind of small mindedness. It would take very little effort to contain the waste in tanks until we figured out what to do with it.
There is an excuse for this "small mindedness," it's that I think human well-being is strictly more important than the well-being of other organisms. And to think otherwise would be monstorous.
Clearly human well-being is intrinsically linked with planetary well-being. We are part of the system not separate from it. We are screwing ourselves by screwing the planet.
