Greenpeace’s Misleading Electronics Report
Greenpeace has admitted to making false statements in their report claiming chemical contamination by the electronics industry. Among the many unverified claims in the Greenpeace report was the assertion that a Sony facility in Mexico has contaminated the local groundwater.
As the San Diego Union-Tribune reported, Sony pointed out the factual errors in the report when a company official noted that “the factory does not discharge industrial waste into Tijuana's sewage system. Only domestic wastewater from the kitchen and restrooms is sent into the municipal wastewater treatment system. ‘There's not one single drain on the factory floor. We believe that substance which Greenpeace found has no relation to Sony Baja Technology Center's operations.’”
The lead author of the Greenpeace study “conceded that Sony might be correct. ‘We didn't sample any discharges from the plant,' he said. ‘We sampled wastewater from the area around Sony.’” The Union-Tribune reports that for “the Sony facility, researchers collected one groundwater sample from a municipal pumping station more than two miles southeast of the plant.”
Greenpeace has yet to correct their report despite the admission by their lead author that water samples they attribute to Sony were not actually from the company’s facility.
WatchDogWatch calls on Greenpeace to: 1) correct their report with respect to the Sony facility; and 2) initiate an open, transparent and independent process for verifying their claims regarding other electronics manufacturing facilities.
See San Diego Union-Tribune article
See Greenpeace report “Cutting Edge Contamination”
