Apple's Chinese Suppliers Accused of Causing Significant Environmental Damage

itwbennett writes "Environmental watchdog groups in China on Wednesday released a report detailing a 5-month investigation on electronic suppliers that they believe are used by Apple. According to the report, accessory manufacturer Kaedar Electronics and printed circuit board maker Unimicron have allegedly been discharging waste water and harmful gas from their plants in the Chinese city of Kunshan. The report claims that over a 10-year period, 'many people have fallen sick, with a sharp increase in the village's cancer rates.' Since 2007, more than nine people have suffered or died from cancer in the village, which has a population of fewer than 60. Apple declined to say if the companies named were in fact its suppliers, but company spokeswoman Carolyn Wu, responding to the report, said, 'Apple is committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base.'"

Comments

Low prices or pollution in China.

[Kenja]

American consumers have made their choice a long time ago.

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[Anonymous Coward]

Low prices or pollution in China

I think you meant to say "High prices or pollution in China"

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[jgagnon]

Low prices or pollution in China..

With Apple you get high prices AND pollution in China. :p

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[nharmon]

Please. More like: Unemployment or pollution in China; Chinese people have made their choice a long time ago.

China knows what increasing environmental standards will do to them. It is the same thing they did to us: shift manufacturing elsewhere. That is not to say they should not raise their standards; but it is hard to ignore the costs of doing so.

Placing this on the shoulder of American consumers ignores the fact that if Americans did not demand low prices, much of that manufacturing would have stayed in America.

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[Ryanrule]

Consumers did not make that choice. American businesses made their choice a long time ago.

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[fafaforza]

The problem is that you can't really buy a computer without many of the same companies being involved. So whatever system you buy instead is likely no better as far as environmental impact.

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[kelemvor4]

Same thing goes for all Apple products. Apple is well known for having extremely high prices.

And, very high customer satisfaction. Coincidence? I think not.

I very much agree that the two are related. I'm sure I'll get modded down for elaborating, but I think Apple's success is very much like Prada's. Ownership of an Apple product is more about status than it is about what the product does. Prada handbags offer inferior storage and configuration to cheap competing bags, even ones manufactured from the same materials yet people (the ones who can afford to do it) still shell out the cash for a Prada handbag instead of going to another brand and paying a fraction of the price. In fact, the price its-self is part of the allure.

Re:Low prices or pollution in China.

[gstoddart]

I very much agree that the two are related. I'm sure I'll get modded down for elaborating, but I think Apple's success is very much like Prada's. Ownership of an Apple product is more about status than it is about what the product does.

*shrug* Your mileage may vary, and perception can be reality. But ...

I've had iPods for over a decade, because they did what I want then, and continue to do it now ... contrast this with, oh, a Zune or any number of defunct devices.

And, when I bought my iPad there wasn't really another product on the market -- despite people saying there have been tablets for a long time, in terms of one I could buy at a consumer electronics store and that was widely supported, in my opinion, the iPad was the first product that was readily available to me.

I won't say that there aren't people for whom Apple is a status symbol ... but as an overweight, non-trendy geek in his 40s who bought these purely on a user satisfaction basis ... maybe it's a status symbol because it works well, not because other people also like them.

I don't know a single owner of Apple products who bought it on the basis of what other people would think of it. And, I know a lot of people who have Apple products. In fact, almost all of the people I know who own anything by Apple are at least 40, have worked in tech for at least 10-15 years, and typically have at least an undergraduate degree in computer science. The rest, do not want to know anything about how their tech works, and just want it to work without fuss.

Other than your belief that people only buy Apple because it's trendy, or that maybe anecdotal evidence suggests that superficial high school kids treat it as a status symbol ... do you have anything which supports this assertion? Or is this merely your own perception or something you've just heard from other people? Because, quite frankly, I hear this a lot but without anything to support it.

They love to beat on Apple, don't they?

[King_TJ]

How many computer or electronic device makers have Chinese plants producing their circuit boards for them? Last I checked, Apple was only one of MANY. Yet this article makes it sound like Apple, alone, is at fault here for not making good on their claim that they're committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility throughout their supply base.

Let's face the facts. Only *China* can take care of pollution in China. If their government doesn't consider it important for businesses operating there not to dump hazardous waste into their ground-water, that's the decision they've made on behalf of their citizens.

When you do business with China, you accept many pros and cons. For example, as Apple is finding out, China also has little regard for intellectual property and copyright -- so plenty of jobs are being created by way of counterfeiting Apple's products and tarnishing their reputation/good name. Again, as much as Apple may be committed to ensuring their intellectual property is protected, they can only do what the Chinese government is WILLING to do for them in those regards, in their nation.

Re:They love to beat on Apple, don't they?

[dkleinsc]

Yes, wer'e all powerless to be informed consumers. All we can do is give companies money for shiny things and leave the consequences up to others.

Actually, we are fairly powerless.

For instance: Let's say there are 10 suppliers of consumer desktops capable of running my software of choice at an acceptable level of performance. Now, all those suppliers need a supplier of memory chips, so they all go out to the free market looking for memory chip manufacturers, and find that they're all, quite independently, talking to the 2-3 vendors of memory chips. Each memory chip manufacturer, in turn, is looking to keep the costs down, builds their factory in China because of the business-friendly laws and regulations and giant supply of workers. The factory management, trying to keep costs down to look good to their bosses, skirts and breaks even the loose environmental and labor laws that China imposes. Now, when I as a consumer go to buy a desktop to run my software of choice, I can choose from any of those 10 vendors, but all of them depend on the same 2-3 factories in China, so it doesn't matter at all (from an environmental and labor rights perspective) which one I choose.

Now, you might argue "well, somebody else could set up another environmentally-friendly factory elsewhere." And in theory they could. But in practice, they'd be driven out of business by somebody who uses the same low-cost factories as everyone else and performs a rubber-stamp audit that doesn't look too carefully so they can claim that they're environmentally friendly.

Re:Apple cares only about profit

[Tsingi]

Apple doesn't care about the planet or slave labor so long as they can make a profit. That has been the goal of Apple since Steve took over, and that's part of the reason I don't buy Apple.

A good and proper reason to boycott a corporation. The problem is ALL corporations are like that, you have to get your hardware somehow, so bending your principles with Apple or some other equally guilty company is six of one...

Name dropping for hits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another example of "apple name dropping" for hits and sensationalism. Unimicron's clients include HTC, Motorola, Sony, Gigabyte, etc.
Everything is made in China, and everyone of us -- Apple customer or otherwise -- is a party to whatever hells happen over there.

Bit vague

[Harold Halloway]

' Since 2007, more than nine people have suffered or died from cancer in the village...'

'More than nine'? So 10? 11? It seems like it wouldn't be difficult to include the precise number.

Bullshit article

[mveloso]

From the summary: "suppliers that they believe are used by Apple"

Trolling by using Apple's name is a time-honored tradition in environmental groups. Yeah, they may be used by Apple...but they may not be. Maybe they're used by Dell? HP? Lenovo? GM? Ford? Chrysler? Qualcomm? Panda Express?

You can't blame Apple...yet

[gubers33]

Apple bought products from these companies, they don't run the companies. That would be like me blaming you for buying a shirt made by slave children. It is Apple's job to monitor its suppliers business practices. I'm not an Apple fan at all and I have written posts where I think Apple is off base suing Samsung and HTC because they both make tablets, but I can be realistic. Apple deserves no blame in here and probably doesn't need to be in the article, but obviously it will sell more and grab more attention if it is in the article. Now that being said if they are Apple's suppliers it would probably be best for Apple to drop them and distance themselves from the story. If they continue to use these suppliers, now that they know of their shady bushiness actions, then maybe you can blame them.

Hypocrisy

[Caerdwyn]

So I can then conclude that all you Apple-haters have personally investigated the source of your motherboards, memory, GPUs, cases, and power supplies of the environmentally-perfect PCs you are using to bash Apple upon? Got a component made by Asus? Foxconn? Any other Chinese company? Yeah, they only engage in environmentally-destructive practices when they're building for Apple.

By your logic, YOU are just as responsible for any pollution and exploitation from YOUR computer components as Apple. You don't get a free ride just because you don't have a black turtleneck.

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