Enviros plan meeting with Apple over pollution
By Xu Chi |
October 18, 2011, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINESE environmental protection organizations may head to the United States in November to negotiate with Apple Inc after they released a report showing Apple's pollution discharge in China has been "expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain."
The negotiation may focus on the latest report that accused Apple of furthering pollution and the company's responses, said an official surnamed Wang with the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), one of the NGOs that produced the report in August.
It will be the fourth negotiation with Apple over the pollution problem. The previous three meetings focused on methods used by the NGOs to examine the pollution but no official response to the problem was heard from Apple, said Wang.
The report, "The Other Side of Apple II – Pollution Spreads through Apple's Supply Chain," was issued by the country's five NGOs and accused the company of abetting pollution after it found more than 27 of Apple's suppliers to have environmental problems.
The report followed "The Other Side of Apple," published in January, which stressed the pollution and poisoning in Apple's supply chain, including a factory in Suzhou that poisoned 137 workers.
"Yet to this day, Apple has systematically failed to respond to all queries regarding their supply chain environmental violations," said the report. "We have found that the pollution discharge from the company has been expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain, and has been seriously encroaching on local communities."
The report said that in one case its investigators visited a factory in Wuhan, Meiko Electronics Co, which acted as a new PCB production base for Apple on the Chinese mainland.
The investigators found "large volumes of wastewater discharged into surrounding rivers and lakes" and that the color of the water was changed into "milky white."
The NGO members' testing samples showed water containing heavy metals including copper and nickel, with the latter at 11.15 times above the authorized standard for surface water, said the report.
Investigators noted that the water carrying the heavy metal substances ran into Nantaizi Lake, which links directly to the Yangtze River.
The negotiation may focus on the latest report that accused Apple of furthering pollution and the company's responses, said an official surnamed Wang with the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), one of the NGOs that produced the report in August.
It will be the fourth negotiation with Apple over the pollution problem. The previous three meetings focused on methods used by the NGOs to examine the pollution but no official response to the problem was heard from Apple, said Wang.
The report, "The Other Side of Apple II – Pollution Spreads through Apple's Supply Chain," was issued by the country's five NGOs and accused the company of abetting pollution after it found more than 27 of Apple's suppliers to have environmental problems.
The report followed "The Other Side of Apple," published in January, which stressed the pollution and poisoning in Apple's supply chain, including a factory in Suzhou that poisoned 137 workers.
"Yet to this day, Apple has systematically failed to respond to all queries regarding their supply chain environmental violations," said the report. "We have found that the pollution discharge from the company has been expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain, and has been seriously encroaching on local communities."
The report said that in one case its investigators visited a factory in Wuhan, Meiko Electronics Co, which acted as a new PCB production base for Apple on the Chinese mainland.
The investigators found "large volumes of wastewater discharged into surrounding rivers and lakes" and that the color of the water was changed into "milky white."
The NGO members' testing samples showed water containing heavy metals including copper and nickel, with the latter at 11.15 times above the authorized standard for surface water, said the report.
Investigators noted that the water carrying the heavy metal substances ran into Nantaizi Lake, which links directly to the Yangtze River.
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