MacBook case fabs kick up a right stink Taiwanese parts supplier Catcher Technology has been forced to close down some of its production systems in China's Suzhou province after local residents complained to the authorities about "odours" coming from its factories. The move is the latest sign that the Chinese government is starting to take environmental fears over …
1. MacBook cases are not painted.
2. Apple were highlighted in the report mentioned because they ignored the overtures of a nascent organisation nobody had ever heard of. Meanwhile other companies sent an automated PR response.
3. According to Greenpeace, whilst Apple still has much to do it is doing far more to ensure responsible sourcing along it's supply chain than any other tech giant.
4. Grow up The Register. I've been reading you since the 1990s when being bitchy was cool but link-baiting Apple every other article is becoming boring. You are no longer a child - act like a grown-up.
5. I won't be revisiting comments on this article so those who want to scream 'fanboy' go right ahead, you don't know the first thing about my preferences.
"Grow up The Register. I've been reading you since the 1990s when being bitchy was cool but link-baiting Apple every other article is becoming boring. You are no longer a child - act like a grown-up."
I sense your outrage you anonymous coward you but as a confirmed fanman from way back I'm cool with the clickbaiting (a new word I learned today, thanks Reg).
I'ts a kind of inadvertent 'ommage. If they had only clickbaited Dell, Acer, Motorola, LG Samsung and the rest of the second eleven there would just have been a collective yawn. Or fart.
PS What happened to the Jobs halo icon? He's probably wearing one now.
If you want the pretence of sober consideration, go read Gartner instead -- but don't fool yourself; it's not as though they have a secret wellspring of knowledge the Vulture lacks, just that they're better at looking professional (i.e., the Reg just doesn't give a fuck, and good on 'em too).
Now, on the topic of the article, I'm amused by the thought that progressive environmentalism is going to destroy the pretence of progressive egalitarianism -- after all, when it comes to electronics manufacturing, there's just no way to make this stuff cleanly, not when you've got to blow the tops off mountains and slaughter abos in job lots just to get to the raw materials. So we're going to clean up the industry, and ('we' being rich progressives, of course) carefully ignore the shrieks that result when suddenly we're asked to shell out $3000 for a basic low-end PC for Granny to read email and Facebook posts -- you know, just like the bad old days, except without any prospect of falling prices in the future, quite the opposite in fact as it gets harder and more expensive to find caches of salvageable parts and equipment from back before the Love Every Thing crowd took over.
Or it could just be that someone in the Celestial Bureaucracy is taking the opportunity to screw a Taiwanese company out of some business and give it to hometown boys Foxconn instead. But why let sensible analysis get in the way of a good political rant now I've got the bit in my teeth?
And this is absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese government continuing to apply economic pressure to the "rebellious province", Taiwan. Nope. Absolutely not. Why, they're only concerned about the environment. That's why they aren't shutting down their enormous toxin-spewing rare earth refineries and all those other pollution pumps, and only forcing the closure of Taiwanese-owned factories on the mainland.
Are they shuting down their state-owned facilities or native-owned facilities because of health or environmental concerns? No. The PRC government doesn't give a damn about the environment, they're using it as an excuse to push out foreign competitors and getting the boot in at Taiwan at the same time.
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