Pollution in Apple’s Chinese Supply Chain
This report is the second issued by a coaltion of Chinese environmental groups, and details pollution problems and related health issues at factories run by five of Apple’s suppliers.
Among the allegations in the report:
• Meiko Electronics plant in Guangzhou, a suspected PCB supplier to Apple Inc., was found in violation of environmental rules 10 times within a few months, after what the report calls schemes “to conceal their environmental violations.”
• Meiko’s plant in Wuhan was found to be discharging heavy metals directly into Nantaizi Lake; copper content in a sediment sample was found to be 56 to 193 times of that in the sediment in other lakes.
• Two factories in Tongxin have taken a once-prosperous village and bought up the arable land at under-market rates, and villagers say since the factories have been built, the “village’s stream that once had relatively clean water has now turned inky black.” That has been coupled with a sharp rise in cancer deaths in the villages — up from 1 in the 1970s to 11 in the 2000s.
