My shirt bears the logo of a popular designer who came to the fore 20 years ago. I paid about $30 for it at a discount clothing store which sells overruns and the previous year's fashions. The shirt would have cost me about twice as much if I had bought it in season. It was “tailored” in Indonesia. I have no idea where the cloth was made, where the button were manufactured, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't in the United States where the company which slapped on the logo is based.
My pants – a pair of black denim – were made in Thailand. My undershirt in India. My shorts in Bangladesh. I can't find a label on my socks, but my shoes are from China, even though, like my shirt and other articles, they bear a North American logo. Asia has dressed me today.
This morning for breakfast I had a banana from Ecuador. And coffee from Uganda, which I bought at a fair trade store in my neighbourhood. To make the coffee I used an appliance designed and built in Italy. The banana was organic but not fair trade, and like the coffee it too was transported by the usual combination of planes, trains and automobiles.
I also had a blueberry muffin – I'm writing this in early March, so the blueberries were from someplace thousands of miles away, though the muffin was made a day earlier in our kitchen. The other ingredients – flour, sugar, butter, milk – were bought at my local grocery store and are likely not from the Toronto area. Perhaps the milk and butter are 100-mile local, but certainly not the sugar, which probably traveled thousands of miles, and is likely grown by poor indentured serfs who work for powerful bottom-line corporations. Like you I try not to think of how I am the evil in the world. It was a good muffin.
The equatorial south fed me this morning. And while the dairy products are local, I am guessing that the amount of energy needed to produce milk, butter, cheese and other yummies in 15-below weather in Central Ontario is probably in the same range as the amount of energy needed to get me a fresh banana from South America. It's a guess.
Last week I had some problems with my home Internet and called my service. I spoke to a woman in Nova Scotia. She was very pleasant. In our conversation we determined the problem was actually with my hardware and I called my computer manufacturer and spoke with Rashid in New Delhi, India. Bright guy, very eager to help and gave me a coupla really good tips. We spoke for 45 minutes. I needed to replace a computer part and I gave him my credit card number which I will pay from the money I earn working for Presbyterian Canadians. The part arrived a few days later from a warehouse in the upper United States but was made someplace in the Pacific Rim.
Which is also where most of my iPod is from. While designed in the States more than half of it is from away. Its hard drive is attributed to Japan's Toshiba but may well have been manufactured in the Philippines. Or China (which is where my Blackberry was probably made). Korea contributes a portion. A 30g iPod Classic has 451 parts.
In a report widely circulated two years ago, there were accusations of massive (upto 200,000 employees) factories, under armed guard, making various iPods. Employees were said to make less than $100/month living in company compounds where they had to turn half their income back for lodging. Apple, the iPod company, responded it was adhering to industry standards.
I love the iPod click wheel and last summer when the family drove east cross Canada we loved having our 3,000+ song library fit in the palm of our hand. Like any other multinational, I try not to worry about how I am the evil in the world.
