Apple Addresses Factory Pollution In China 190
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."
Possible Connection? (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 [cnn.com]. Perhaps Apple is free to conduct investigations with the passing of a certain misanthrope [weknowmemes.com]?
So much for "green" laptops (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Steve is turning in his grave (Score:4, 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.
Re:Really? (Score:5, 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.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
Boo hoo hoo you snivelling whiner. OWS is the most interesting thing that's happened in the USA for a long time. Unless you are one of the top richest 30,000 people in the US, you should be very interested and very concerned.
Face it, you're just afraid. It's inevitable that OWS will continue and get stronger after all the TV-bound Americans were shown the victories of the people in the Arab Spring this year. Winter's gonna put a damper on a lot of it, but as the country returns to warmth next spring, I expect it to reawaken and intensify.
I haven't been involved, but it's been fascinating watching the normal citizenry begin to awaken finally. I thought it'd never happen.
But when the real numbers of unemployed are around 20% and growing (Look at all the high-profile factories, banks, investment houses, local government, etc. that have failed just in the last four weeks!), the middle class is going to be finally showing up in large number. It's to the point where the so-called "average" family (Two parents, two kids, a dog/cat, high school and/or some college.) who has been living frugally already and just trying to live an honest life, are getting to the point where they are not going to be able to keep a roof over their heads or feed their children pretty soon. (Sorry Timmy, but we just had to cook Lassie.)
Once the higher-than-ever heating bills kick in this winter, that's going to kill a lot of people's final savings. They are going to be hungry in belly and hungry in spirit come spring. Anything could happen. The 'leaders' who have thought far too little about keeping an economy going for the long term. No knowledge of symbiotic systems, no long-picture societal wisdom. Lying to themselves that the only purpose in life is making a short-term profit without any consideration for the long-term game.
It's in their hands, they can fix this and help people, or the normal people will be faced with the scary truth that they are going to have to fix it themselves, and soon, or be reduced (They and their children) to nothing more than cattle in the next few years. No pensions, no healthcare, no 401Ks, getting older by the day, knowing that when that day comes, if something doesn't change now, they will be to old and weak to change it then...