When you hear anything about America’s “economic growth” or “wealth” they are measuring by business and just assuming it benefits everyone here, but we have an actual higher ratio of poor to rich people than almost anywhere else. We have the highest costs and highest debt for both medical care and education. We also have the largest percentage of people in prison, mostly for nonviolent charges, and more *ways* to go to prison than the global norm.
We also do not measurably have “the most freedom” of any country, if you can even figure out how that’s supposed to be defined, but the idea sure gets hammered into us our whole lives. Americans both right and left genuinely think they’d be less free living in ANY other place on the planet. We’re never actually taught any examples of how.
Funny as hell to see the notes full of arguing with debkorvelus, the same user who outright said that water should never be a human right.
god, literally none of you dumbasses know what “third world” means. We in the third world are not backwards, we are EXPLOITED. EXPLORED. COLONIZED. The fact that our nations’ wealth gets stolen (by the first world) doesn’t mean we are stupid, or that we don’t try and take care of our people, or that we lack [X public service]. The US *IS* the wealthiest nation in the world, and it got all that wealth through slavery, genocide, colonialism, and imperialism. The reason why it has so many “mega-wealthy” people is due to exploiting the labor and resources of the third world.
The US is as “first-world” as a nation can possibly be. It is the literal Imperial Core of the capitalist world. The fact that it fails to provide for its own citizens (or rather, provide as much as it should. $600 is still MILES above what most third world poor people got) is another matter entirely. Don’t fucking pretend that 1) you’re at our level and 2) “Third-world” is synonym with “shitty country”. Fuck off with this “America is actually a third-world nation” bullshit already and just admit that your country *will not* provide for it’s own citizens *despite* plundering our countries.
“I get excited when I see waste,” the materials scientist told Patta, “because I know that’s life for us.”
The fact that plastic does not sink is precisely what intrigued Matee.
–
“It took us about nine months just to make one brick.”
One
brick wasn’t enough, but that was no problem for a woman who likes to
get her hands dirty. Next, she built a machine to mass produce the
plastic bricks.
First the waste is sorted to remove rubble and metal, and then the
plastic is baked — just like “making cookies,” joked Matee — before the
boiling mixture is molded into building blocks. Her setup can churn out
as many as 2,000 per day, and they’re 35% cheaper than standard bricks,
and up to seven-times stronger.
–
Kenya’s fight against plastic pollution isn’t just a homegrown
issue. It’s complicated by the fact that, two years ago, the U.S.
exported more than one billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 nations,
including Kenya. Now Washington wants to make the shipment of more
plastic waste a condition of a proposed trade deal.
Greenpeace activist Amos Wemanya believes Kenya can barely manage its own waste, let alone recycle America’s.
Matee agrees that countries should keep their waste in their own
backyards, and she intends to make good on what she calls her triple
threat:
“The more we recycle the plastic, the more we produce
affordable housing… the more we created more employment for the youth,”
she said.
Like many young Kenyans, Matee is passionate about
saving the environment, but it’s not just words. She’s hoping that
through her actions, the mountain in Dandora will become a mere hill.
