The True Costs of Manufacturing a Particular Item

Even though companies like Wal-Mart now sell many products at prices attractive even to lower-income U.S. residents, what are the hidden costs behind each item?

Are children in sweatshops building it?

How much environmental degradation occurred in the process of creating it?

Did it require that an inordinate quantity of raw materials be utilized, and refined down to the state in which they are finally used in the item’s manufacture, regardless of the waste produced? And could those raw materials be utilized in another way that would benefit (for example) both “first world” recipients of them and the residents of the country where they originated, as well as nature itself?

Or could the product have easily been made with recycled materials, saving money and eliminating the need to remove raw materials from the natural environment?

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