China: Apple under fire, again
A couple carries a new Mac desktop just bought from the Apple store in Beijing on May 8, 2011. Four people were taken to hospital and a glass door smashed as a near-riot broke out at Beijing’s top Apple store among crowds rushing to snap up the popular iPad 2 tablet computer, state press said on May 8.
Apple is under fire again in China, this time accused of not being green.
In a report released Wednesday, a consortium of five Chinese environmental groups calls out the U.S. tech giant for what is says are widespread environmental problems created by its supplier companies in China.
The report follows up on an earlier Apple condemnation by the same environmental groups in January.
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In their latest report, which targets six electronics factory locations in China, the groups say:
Faced with an ever evasive Apple, a group of Chinese NGOs decided to dig deeper and carry out further investigations into the environmental problems that exist within Apple’s supply chain. Through five months of research and field investigations we have found that the pollution discharge from this $300 billion dollar company has been expanding and spreading throughout its supply chain, and has been seriously encroaching on local communities and their surrounding environments.
Apple had no comment on the report.
The company has a huge and growing following in China, but continues to have problems largely among supplier companies it contracts to make all of its products.
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