More Bad Press for Apple

The bad press keeps rolling out for Apple in China. Earlier this month, the company was embroiled in the controversy surrounding a string of suicides – 16 in all – at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen that manufactures iPhone parts. Now, according to the UK Guardian, 34 Chinese environmental organizations are again putting heat on the company for high levels of heavy metal pollution produced by some of its suppliers in China.

The concerns have been raised by a group of 34 environmental organizations – including Friends of Nature, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, and Green Beagle – who claim they have written a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs about their findings, but have not received a reply. Twenty-nine other IT companies were also contacted, and Apple is one of eight that have not responded.

This isn’t the first time Apple has been accused of polluting the environment. The company was fined $43,200 in 2007 for air quality violations caused by the running of an emergency generator at one of their plants in Sacramento, USA.

Apple also scored a rather low “green mark” of 4.5 out of 10 in the May edition of Greenpeace International’s Guide to Greener Electronics, which “ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TVs and games consoles according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.” It should be noted, however, that this score put them in the middle range of companies, and way ahead of Chinese firm Lenovo, which scored a paltry 1.9 out of 10.

But maybe this is all old news for Apple. The Guardian article specifically mentions printed circuit boards (PCB) as heavy metal producers, but Apple claims that the new iPhone 4G has bromine-free PCBs. It remains to be seen whether Apple will respond directly to the concerns of Chinese environmental groups.