Due to high fertilizer costs Chinese farmers are picking up MSW at the local dump, fermenting it, and using it to fertilize their crops. Notice I didn’t say “filter” or “clean”. These crops suck up the nutrients, and the heavy metals, then get shipped to Hong Kong where you enjoy the garbage laced veggies with your local cuisine.

The issue here (besides getting cancer) is that the farmers likely do not realize the harm caused by doing this. Sure they know it’s bad, but I don’t think the average farmer knows not only how bad it is for the consumers (they probably don’t care as well), but also how bad it is for their own cropland.

Hell, even when the farmers do use fertilizer you’re still probably going to get a dose of heavy metals in your rice.