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Apple Addresses Factory Pollution In China

Posted by samzenpus on from the progress-marches-on dept.

redletterdave writes "Apple reportedly sent five employees to meet with five different Chinese environmental groups on Nov. 15, only to learn about several troubling environmental issues at as many as 22 different product parts suppliers. In the three-hour meeting, the Chinese environmentalist coalition claimed the factories were releasing toxic gasses, heavy metal sludge and other pollutants. Apple acknowledged that a number of its supply firms have failed to properly keep track of their wastewater emissions and vowed to improve its environmental standards for suppliers; this is the first time Apple has admitted any wrongdoing in relation to environmental pollution from any of its Chinese supply chains. The meeting comes one month after one of Apple's Chinese suppliers of MacBook parts was shut down by China's government in response to resident complaints of 'unbearable odors,' which were described as a mix of chemical fertilizer and burning plastic."

23 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Really? by masternerdguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not an apple fan, I like Linux. However all hardware manufacturers are guilty here not just apple.

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    1. Re:Really? by coinreturn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not an apple fan, I like Linux. However all hardware manufacturers are guilty here not just apple.

      Actually, Apple and other manufacturers are NOT responsible for their SUPPLIERS' mishaps.

    2. Re:Really? by ganjadude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      no they are not, you are right

      but

      they can choose to use suppliers who do not pollute, and people can decide not to shop with a company that uses suppliers who pollute. slightly different but in the same vein, look at the nike sweatshop issue for proof that shoppers do care about the conditions that suppliers work

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    3. Re:Really? by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 5, Funny

      I expect a drug addict to steal, not a wall street banker.

      Well, there's your problem right there.

    4. Re:Really? by joocemann · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I disagree.

      The distance that contracting places between a company and its actions is not so great a distance as compared to the company having done it themselves. Surely we could bounce analogies back and forth about cause, effect, demand, action, outsourcing, exploitative employ, etc etc...

      But in the end it really comes down to this: Apple (and many other businesses) are directly responsible for contracting with firms that are known environmental abusers. The use of outsourced contracts may give the appearance of a distance from responsibility, but the actual real fact is that from start to finish, the product was made by dirty methods and they have known it all along. Its not like middle school children and high school dropouts don't already know what conditions these factories produce --- (now sarcasm) but oh, no, there is no way someone at Apple could have guessed it.... Yeah right... *roll eyes*

      A company can have subsidiaries, or direct outsourcing, or whatever.... They are still part of it, if not the main cause of it. The same goes for US companies selling toys manufactured in China that have heavy metals in the paints and harm our kids... If you ask them to make your product, but you've got no questions, or tests, or safeguards, and even though everything about the history of similar chinese manufacturing tells you it is dirty (like I said, even young teens know this fact), its YOUR fault that its dirty when you sold it.

      Analogy for you analogizers: If I sell food, and it turns out the people growing it are being tortured to produce it nearly for free, yet I have been sourcing the food from a place where slavery and torture is widely understood to happen, there is hardly a distance you can place between me and the fact that my food comes from said place with said problems.

    5. Re:Really? by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The real problem is the macroeconomics of the matter. Jobs' built state of the art factories for both the original Mac and NeXT in the US. Both failed to return on their investment. At least Apple cares enough, wether it's due to concern for their image or genuine concern, to investigate and ameliorate conditions where possible. Most companies don't.

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    6. Re:Really? by chartreuse · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are you kidding? Dell and HP make a third of all PCs (and half of the ones sold in the US, where Apple's share is peaking at 15%). And they (along with ASUS) are some of FoxConn's biggest customers. They surely have as much pull as Apple, but they don't use it, do they?

    7. Re:Really? by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful

      no they are not, you are right

      Actually, yes they are, he's wrong.

      they can choose to use suppliers who do not pollute,

      That contradicts what you said before. Because if they don't choose good suppliers, they're effectively condoning and supporting bad ones.

      Obligatory car analogy: If you get food poisoning at a restaurant, it's the restaurant who is liable, not the shithead who sold them defrosted prawns as fresh ones. Or should I say directly liable, i.e. to you; should you sue the restaurant, they can probably charge the vendor in turn.

      In short: you're responsible to your customers for consequences caused by any and all subcontractors/suppliers you choose. And this makes 100% sense - if you weren't, you could get away with all kinds of scams using shell/sockpuppet companies. And that's reserved for Wall Street [dradadaTISH]

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    8. Re:Really? by coinreturn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, Apple and other manufacturers are NOT responsible for their SUPPLIERS' mishaps.

      Anyone who is able to improve things and opts not to is responsible.

      So it's your fault. You could take your entire net worth, liquidate it and go to China and help clean up the pollution yourself.

  2. Possible Connection? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apple reportedly sent five employees to meet with five different Chinese environmental groups on Nov. 15, only to learn about several troubling environmental issues at as many as 22 different product parts suppliers.

    Huh, that's odd, it was back in September when Apple outright rejected these claims. Perhaps Apple is free to conduct investigations with the passing of a certain misanthrope?

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  3. Re:Article is Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is Apple's fault for hiring companies in China knowing that they do massive polluting. It's not like its a big secret that China does massive polluting with their industrial sector.

  4. Re:Article is Troll by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd argue that the end-users are at fault just as much. It's hardly been a secret that the iphone you buy was manufactured by smog factories and assembled by slave labor.

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  5. Re:Article is Troll by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bullshit. They knew that China's environmental regulations are a joke, and they still chose to have their hardware manufactured there. The pollution must be REALLY bad if the Chinese govt is actually doing something about it.

  6. they also stopped beating their wife by HarrySquatter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this is the first time Apple has admitted any wrongdoing in relation to environmental pollution from any of its Chinese supply chains.

    Thus is also the first time they've admitted that they will stop beating their wife. Even if Apple has some "wrongdoing" to admit at.least they are doing something unlike Dell, Logitech, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, AMD, Acer, Toshiba, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Cisco, Nintendo, Sony, Nokia, MSI, Vizio, Samsung, HTC, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.(the list can go on) who have yet to admit their wrongdoings since they use the same suppliers.

    1. Re:they also stopped beating their wife by HarrySquatter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thanks for proving my point. This is nothing but Apple bashing since countless multibillion dollar multinationals use the same suppliers yet all the bad things these suppliers do are somehow Apple's fault alone.

  7. Keep this up and they'll have to move again by jandrese · · Score: 3, Funny

    Cripes, you go to all of the trouble to find the place with the loosest/most poorly enforced regulatory structure, and then suddenly the government pulls a bait and switch and starts caring about the massive toll all of it is having on the population. It's a real pain to go and find some new place where they don't care about their citizens. The modern world is a libertarian nightmare.

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    1. Re:Keep this up and they'll have to move again by joocemann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Passively they do.

      Libertarian ideology is such that a company could produce something that nearly ablates the world of mammals (including humans), and those who live through it are supposed to not buy the product and thus the market kills the company.

      Libertarian ideology does not apply in a world where the damage a company an do may take years or decades to accrue (like BPA, hormone interference, long term environmental abuse) and the market response required to make sense would be 'immediate'.

      Regulations are necessary because we don't want serious damage to happen BEFORE the market responds. We want to prevent the serious damage with the best scientific understandings of safety we have, and let the market respond to the products that come from our best knowledge of safe practices.

  8. Re:Steve is turning in his grave by truthsearch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My vote would be Gates was more ruthless. He absorbed and/or destroyed more small businesses than I could count. He lied in federal court. He used a monopoly to negatively manipulate markets. He would lose billions of dollars on a product just to undercut competition.

    By contrast Jobs was an asshole and difficult to work with. This is an easy vote for me.

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  9. Re:Article is Troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's hardly been a secret that the iphone you buy was manufactured by smog factories and assembled by slave labor.

    Dude, it's only "Designed" in California.

  10. Consumers just as guilty by monkeyhybrid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Apple are guilty of anything here, then so are the consumers of Apple products. And seeing as a large percentage of other products we buy from countless other manufacturers probably have parts manufactured in similar factories and in similar conditions, that makes pretty much all of us guilty.

  11. Re:Article is Troll by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can you find a computer company that doesn't use parts from China? Doubtful.

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  12. Re:Article is Troll by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is Apple's fault for hiring companies in China knowing that they do massive polluting.

    That argument would be a LOT stronger if Apple wasn't the sole company being taken to task for it.

    .

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  13. Not really a new thing... by shawnce · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2011_Progress_Report.pdf

    http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/