Apple Addresses Factory Pollution In China

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."

Comments

Really?

[masternerdguy]

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

Re:Really?

[ganjadude]

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

Re:Really?

[M. Baranczak]

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

Well, there's your problem right there.

Re:Really?

[joocemann]

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.

Re:Really?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

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.

Re:Really?

[chartreuse]

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?

Re:Really?

[Hognoxious]

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]

Possible Connection?

[eldavojohn]

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?

Re:Article is Troll

[roc97007]

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.

they also stopped beating their wife

[HarrySquatter]

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.

Re:they also stopped beating their wife

[HarrySquatter]

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.

Re:Article is Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Consumers just as guilty

[monkeyhybrid]

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.

Re:Article is Troll

[NatasRevol]

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

Re:Keep this up and they'll have to move again

[joocemann]

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.

Re:Article is Troll

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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.

.