Chinese environmental activist Ma Jun has accused two electronics manufacturers, including Apple supplier Foxconn, of environmental violations. From Paul Mozur and Eva Dou at The Wall Street Journal:
The report, which was released by activist Ma Jun’s Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs and four other nonprofit organizations, accuses Foxconn of releasing water with high levels of heavy metals into a river that feeds Shanghai’s Huangpu river.
The organizations also released a video, which showed cloudy and dark wastewater being released from what they said were a Foxconn facility and another factory run by Taiwanese supplier UniMicron Technology Corp. in the eastern Chinese town of Kunshan. The groups said tests of the sediment near the vents showed levels of nickel and copper exceeding standards laid out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
[…] The allegations come amid rising concern about soil pollution in China. In February, China’s Ministry of Environmental protection declined to release the results of a multiyear nationwide soil-pollution survey, calling the data a “state secret.” Estimates from state-affiliated researchers say that anywhere between 8% and 20% of China’s arable land, some 25 to 60 million acres, may now be contaminated with heavy metals.
The IPE’s accusations also follow claims—some disputed—of labor abuses at fellow Apple supplier Pegatron. See more on Foxconn and water pollution via CDT.
