A group of environmental protection organizations has jointly released on Wednesday a report that accuses 27 Apple’s suppliers of pollution.

The angry group claims that Apple success is not just due to Steve Jobs’ genius, but to the readily available high-tech suppliers, the low cost of manual labor and in exchange China is getting high pollution.

The report even goes as far as claiming that in , Kaida Electronics, Apple’s parts supplier, is polluting the water and the atmosphere, resulting in an increase of cancer cases in the area.

According to the report, the factory plant is separated by the local village only by a wall and hundreds of people live around the factory.
After noticing an increase in diseases and discovering that more than 20 local residents were suffering of cancer, children and teenagers have been moved away from the plant.

Not far from the Kaida plant, there’s another Apple supplier: Dingxin.

A local resident told reporters that “every night the factory discharges unpleasantly smelling liquids into the sewer water”
To make things worse, the Dingxin factory plan is nearby a drinking water reservoir.

Bare in mind that these suppliers, if found to be Apple suppliers, are not producing components exclusively for Apple. The Cupertino-based company generally inspects its suppliers.

When contacted on the matter, Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu said that the company “is committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base” and that it requires that suppliers “use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made.”

The WSJ says that “Apple releases a supplier report annually with results from the company’s inspections of suppliers for compliance with ethics, labor, health, safety, human-rights and environmental policies. But Apple doesn’t identify most of its suppliers. The company’s 2011 report, released in February, said it found and took corrective actions on 80 facilities that weren’t storing or handling hazardous materials properly, and 41 that weren’t recycling or disposing of hazardous wastes properly as required by law. Apple didn’t list the companies or the specific violations.”

 

(Via: , WSJ)