Back in the car, Mohammad tells me that Canada’s increasing labor costs, partly driven by a law that raises the minimum wage, are pushing the grading businesses to Pakistan. “It’s the difference between three hundred dollars per month for a grader and fifteen hundred dollars per month. If the price of the clothes was rising, it wouldn’t matter. But the price is falling.” It occurs to me that somebody will have to pay for that shipping; and in the case of less valuable items, it won’t make sense to export them at all. I think of Tucson and Erich Schmidt’s salvage yard. “That’ll mean less reuse,
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