China’s Textiles Mills Dumping Dye Wastes to Reduce Costs
Source: Agencies Date: 2007-08-27
Last summer, Chinese government investigators carried out a surprise inspection of Fuan Textiles mill plant in southern China. What they found caused alarm at dozens of American retailers was the company’s fabric in their clothes.
The factory, majority owned by Hong Kong-based Fountain Set Holdings Ltd., had turned the water of the nearby river dark red. The inspecting authorities discovered a pipe buried underneath the factory floor that was dumping roughly 22,000 tons of water contaminated from its dyeing operations each day into a nearby river, according to local environmental-protection officials. This is allegedly being done by the company to save costs.
Some textile factories in China are accused of dumping dye wastes into rivers to cut costs. While China’s river pollution worsens, U.S. companies that use the textiles are coming under fire for not taking a hard enough line against suppliers in China.
Activists in China are trying to make the supply-chain link to U.S. clothing companies more clear, to raise pressure on factories accused of dumping waste. In more than two decades since international companies began turning to Chinese factories to churn out the cheap T-shirts, jeans and sneakers that people around the world wear daily, China’s air, land and water have paid a heavy price. China has faced harsh criticism in recent months over the safety of exports ranging from tainted toothpaste to toxic toys.
But environmental activists and the Chinese government are increasingly pointing to the flip side: the role multinational companies play in China’s growing pollution by demanding ever-lower prices for Chinese products. Prices on fabric and clothing imported to the U.S. have fallen 25% since 1995, partly due to the downward pricing pressure brought by discount retail chains.
China’s factories have kept costs down by dumping waste water directly into rivers. Treating contaminated water costs more than 13 cents a metric ton, so large factories can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by sending waste water directly to rivers in violation of China’s water-pollution laws.
