Are Apple Suppliers Causing Cancer in China?

Apple hasn’t had the best luck when it comes to suppliers in China. Or perhaps it’s that Apple just doesn’t care. Whatever the reason, things haven’t been going well. There was the string of suicides at Foxconn, where iPads, iPhones, and other Apple gear get made. Toxic fumes at a factory connected to Apple put 62 workers in the hospital in May 2010. Early this year, there was the report from Chinese environmental groups condemning Apple as secretive and polluting.

Today, a new report in the National Business Daily but sourced from Chinese environmental groups suggests that two of Apple’s suppliers in Kunshan, on the outskirts of Shanghai, may be responsible for cancer-causing pollutants being released into the surrounding area. Two factories, Kaida Electronics and Dingxin Electronics, were fingered for emitting toxic sewage and gases that have given nearby villagers cancer. A reporter from the National Business Daily investigated the area around the plants and discovered “a filthy black river of unclear origins and dust particles whose odor assaults the nostrils.”

These pollutants may be having a horrific effect on local populace. A village next to the Kaida factory with around 100 residents already has more than twenty residents confirmed to have developed cancer, and people who can are moving out of the area. The Dingxin factory is also near this village, and one villager said,

“Dingxin’s waste water is secretly dumped into the river each night, and gas fumes are exhausted into the air; we all feel quite sick.”

“The bad smell in this area is quite fierce,” said another. “There are factories in all four directions, our village is surrounded.”

Both Kaida and Dingxin refused to comment for the National Business Daily story. Apple, of course, does not publicly list its suppliers in China, but according to the report, both Kaida and Dingxin can be clearly connected to Apple’s supply chain via what has been released to and reported on in the media.

The local environmental bureau says the factories are up to legal standards, although a spokesman did admit the area smells terrible: “Although our monitoring reports show [the factories] are up to standards, there is definitely still a smell in the area because the standards the factories are meeting are industrial standards, which are different from the [environmental] standards for residential areas.”

In addition to the village immediately adjacent to the Kaida factory, there is also a kindergarten.

The environmental bureau spokesman also said that the factories had been cooperating with the bureau, and that the problem was much worse several years ago, but acknowledged that they still get numerous complaints because the village is so close to the factory.