High-Tech industry contaminating rivers and underground water in Asia and
Greenpeace has released ‘Cutting Edge Contamination: A study of environmental pollution during the manufacture of electronic products’. The report shows that some of the electronics industries’ biggest brands, and their suppliers, are contaminating rivers and underground wells with a wide range of hazardous chemicals.
Analysis of samples taken from industrial estates in 
hazardous chemicals in each of the three sectors investigated: printed wiring board (PWB) manufacture, semiconductor chip manufacture and component assembly.
Most noteworthy was the discovery at the majority of sites investigated of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), a group of brominated chemicals used as flame retardants, and of phthalates, chemicals used in a wide range processes and materials, though they are most commonly used as plasticisers (softeners) in some plastics.
“Over recent years we have seen an increasing concern over the use of hazardous chemicals in electronic products but attention has focussed on the contamination released during disposal or ‘recycling of electronic waste’”, said Dr. Kevin Brigden from the Greenpeace Research Laboratories. “Our findings of contamination arising during the manufacturing stage make it clear that only when we factor in the complete life cycle will the full environmental costs of electronic devices begin to emerge.”
The electronics industry is truly global with individual components manufactured at specialised facilities around the world often involving highly resource and chemical intensive processes, generating hazardous wastes, the fate and effects of which are still very poorly documented.
“There is shockingly little information on precisely which major brand companies are supplied by which manufacturing facilities. Responsibility for the contamination lies as much with those brands as with the facilities themselves,” said Zeina Alhajj, Toxics Campaigner, Greenpeace International, “There has to be full transparency regarding the supply chain within the electronics industry, so that brand owners are forced to take responsibility for the environmental impacts of producing their goods.”
The study also documents the contamination of groundwater aquifers at a number of sites, particularly around semiconductor manufacturers, with toxic chlorinated volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and toxic metals including nickel. Contamination of groundwater is of particular concern, since local communities in many places use groundwater for drinking water. At one site, the Cavite Export Processing Zone (CEPZA) in the