Oh yeah, we are guilty as sin. That Chinese official calling us all hypocrites was right on target. We go about our daily lives just a bit too blase(insert accent). We are a super stressed-out nation that self medicates with instant gratification. We buy and eat any crappy, empty high caloried food and buy and play with any crappy cheap throwaway doodads. We are the consumers of junk. A good three quarters of what is coming out of China is toxic landfill. We like to shop for it every weekend and put it in our homes. You can apply that to pearls too. Who is buying all those freakishly coloured grade X freshwater pearls coming out of China all over eBay? Why do you think that every single body of water(big or small) in China has been used for pearl culture? Because there is a market out there for anything---especially crap. Hey, just send it to North America, can't let the shelves go bare for a moment at Walmart.

In fact, besides being the world's biggest polluters, we are also responsible for a huge chunk of China's pollution.

Slraep