Toxic Spillage at Samsung Austin Leaves "Virtually no Surviving Aquatic Life"

[ThaiTaffy]

Ah yes, because toxic spillage NEVER happens in the EU, thanks to beuracrats! As we all know, toxic waste is one of the most stringent law abiding entities in existence!

You do realise the reason so much chip manufacturing left the US was over enviromental compliance, right? In china you never would have heard about this happening, just another day.

I live downstream of China on the river Mekong they dump alot of rubbish but it still has fish.

 

[TheLostSwede]

This is where France wins the day imo, France does not get enough credit for how advanced their monitoring systems are in almost every field whether it be nuclear, their water systems, etc. I watched a documentary on it. Round the clock of monitoring of the finest details, especially on the public water supply... I found that really interesting, not to mention they were 10x more advanced in how they purified the water than the USA.

As much as I disliked France when I visited, they don't get enough credit, I am not sure I would say this kind of thing happens all over. Sweden is by all measures much more of a right wing country, as is Texas. I have yet to see an example from a far left country of this magnitude of negligence.

Not trying to bring politics in this, just stating how I see it before me.

I take it you never visited Sweden? I grew up in the late 70's and 80's, when Sweden was still a very socialist country. Very strange place to be, looking back at things.
Anyhow, Sweden does a lot of testing, at the water treatment plants. Mainly to see how much drugs there are in the sewage and these days they try to estimate how many has that thing that's going around.

i don't think i made myself clear.
At least i think in English discharge mean they did it (i just looked in the dictionary and it says its an action, someone choose to do it). What im saying is they should have tested it before doing it. It could easily been avoided and detected. They would have noticed the release of waste was toxic not just treated water.

That case in Sweden was a leak, it can happen, it's an accident, it can happen in our home pipes. There was no intentional discharge.

Right, well, discharge doesn't have to be on purpose, it can be by accident as well, or negligence, which is more likely in this case I would say.

Also, Europe is a big place.

Sludge spill just 1 of Eastern Europe's toxic horrors

Abandoned mines in Romania leech heavy-metal contaminated waters into rivers. A Hungarian chemical plant produces more than 100,000 tons of environmental toxins a year. Soil in eastern Slovakia is contaminated with cancer-producing PCBs.

www.nbcnews.com

When it comes to mining, Sweden has its own interesting problems, although I guess it's not quite fair to blame the mining company here.

Kiruna - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As for foundries in general, they're doing more and more to recycle at least their own water, which will hopefully help reduce these kind of things in the future.

Water Scarcity Concerns Drive Semiconductor Industry to Adopt New Technologies

In these days of seemingly neverending chip shortages, more and greater varieties of semiconductors are in demand. Chip fabs around the world are now racing to catch up to the world's many microelectronic needs. And chip fabs need a lot of water to operate. Too much, they're realizing

spectrum.ieee.org

 

[Bomby569]

Right, well, discharge doesn't have to be on purpose, it can be by accident as well, or negligence, which is more likely in this case I would say.

Also, Europe is a big place.

Sludge spill just 1 of Eastern Europe's toxic horrors

Abandoned mines in Romania leech heavy-metal contaminated waters into rivers. A Hungarian chemical plant produces more than 100,000 tons of environmental toxins a year. Soil in eastern Slovakia is contaminated with cancer-producing PCBs.

www.nbcnews.com

i said most of Europe.

But i looked it up and all definitions of discharge require an action: the action of, the intention of. Accidents don't fall under discharges as far as i can see. Negligence is just poor management by other words, there should be redundancies to control something so serious.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I live downstream of China on the river Mekong they dump alot of rubbish but it still has fish.

Not what you'd call the cleanest of waters though...

 

[Space Lynx]

I take it you never visited Sweden? I grew up in the late 70's and 80's, when Sweden was still a very socialist country. Very strange place to be, looking back at things.
Anyhow, Sweden does a lot of testing, at the water treatment plants. Mainly to see how much drugs there are in the sewage and these days they try to estimate how many has that thing that's going around.

I have not, I lived in Finland for a bit though, and they seemed to have this idea of Sweden being more right wing than Norway/Finland. Also, with Covid policy in the early days, they kind of showed that right wing card then as well of just let 'everyone get infected and we all move on' attitude.

My idea of Sweden is only based on those two things though, for the record, I love IKEA. lol

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Not what you'd call the cleanest of waters though...

View attachment 234705

Like I said they dump alot of rubbish and that's a tributary from the looks of it not the actual Mekong that looks relatively clean in comparison.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I have not, I lived in Finland for a bit though, and they seemed to have this idea of Sweden being more right wing than Norway/Finland. Also, with Covid policy in the early days, they kind of showed that right wing card then as well of just let 'everyone get infected and we all move on' attitude.

Norway, maybe, Finland, not really.
Also, the whole policy thing is something that no-one seems to be able to read up on and understand, it's against the Swedish constitution, it's really that simple. A nation wide lockdown would mean an end to whatever government enacted it. There are ways to enable smaller, regional lockdownds, but apparently it wasn't used.

My idea of Sweden is only based on those two things though, for the record, I love IKEA. lol

Hmmm, IKEA is alright I guess, I just wish they made less stuff in the PRC.

Like I said they dump alot of rubbish and that's a tributary from the looks of it not the actual Mekong that looks relatively clean in comparison.

It was the Mekong delta in Vietnam, from about six years ago.

i said most of Europe.

But i looked it up and all definitions of discharge require an action: the action of, the intention of. Accidents don't fall under discharges as far as i can see. Negligence is just poor management by other words, there should be redundancies to control something so serious.

ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE definition: An accidental event happens by chance or as the result of an accident , and is not... | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples

www.collinsdictionary.com

For some reason, most examples are related to guns... I wonder why...

 

[Vayra86]

Just you wait...

Dark Reign. It will happen. Soon we'll be flooded and yet still in need of clean water.

 

[Space Lynx]

Just you wait...

Dark Reign. It will happen. Soon we'll be flooded and yet still in need of clean water.

We'll just call the Culligan guy, don't worry

 

[stimpy88]

Its deliberate. They shut it off as soon as they were told... B******s.

 

[LFaWolf]

Well, this is Texas, where environmental policies and enforcement are lax. I would think the punishment would be light as well. This is why so many businesses are rushing to set up camps there. It is business friendly.

 

[zlobby]

Here we go again...

 

[TheUn4seen]

You guys get on a high horse, but let's think for a second about why corporations do those things? Maybe, just maybe, because of constant consumer pressure and greed for cheap toys? Companies like Samsung have to cut costs wherever they can or the consumers will buy cheaper shit from China - a place where things like natural environment and human rights are just obstacles which can be easily avoided thanks to the massively corrupt government.
I once worked with a person who conducted consumer research and the results are a big part of my misanthropy. You guys (a.k.a the consumers) overwhelmingly said you wouldn't pay 25 euros more for an item worth a thousand euros if it meant the workers would be treated in accordance with European employment laws. In other words, for 25 euros people are willing to accept child labor and forced labor. Remember that for a single person who actually cares abut the real cost of consumer greed there are hundreds of thousands who don't care, they just want a new toy and will only buy the top result of sorting by "price: lowest first".

Also, guess who will pay for this little mishap? Consumers directly through higher prices, or consumers indirectly through government subsidies and tax breaks?

 

[Divide Overflow]

Austin was already getting so toxic, I doubt they noticed much.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

How long till we are just living on a big ball of toxic muck. Lots of big corps will be having accidental "leaks" of crap into the environment with little or no consequence apart from a fine that is so little in comparison to their worth that it may as well be not given.

 

[Arcdar]

Indeed and "The spillage is estimated to have occurred over 100+ days..." report doesn't sound like there's much corporate responsibility going on there - I mean 100 days? That's more than one quarter of the year of spilling!

A few hours already is bad ..... a day massive.... 100 days??? WTF are people doing there, it's not like you could just "not notice" whats happening, especially as you normally have certain intervals where you have to empty the TW-containers..... if they don't fill up something is wrong....

 

[TheLostSwede]

You guys get on a high horse, but let's think for a second about why corporations do those things? Maybe, just maybe, because of constant consumer pressure and greed for cheap toys? Companies like Samsung have to cut costs wherever they can or the consumers will buy cheaper shit from China - a place where things like natural environment and human rights are just obstacles which can be easily avoided thanks to the massively corrupt government.
I once worked with a person who conducted consumer research and the results are a big part of my misanthropy. You guys (a.k.a the consumers) overwhelmingly said you wouldn't pay 25 euros more for an item worth a thousand euros if it meant the workers would be treated in accordance with European employment laws. In other words, for 25 euros people are willing to accept child labor and forced labor. Remember that for a single person who actually cares abut the real cost of consumer greed there are hundreds of thousands who don't care, they just want a new toy and will only buy the top result of sorting by "price: lowest first".

Also, guess who will pay for this little mishap? Consumers directly through higher prices, or consumers indirectly through government subsidies and tax breaks?

But isn't the lower cost narrative something that was started by the corporations to start with?
They wanted to make their products cheaper, so more people could live the American dream, no?
And now we're in a situation where slave labour or near enough are being used in many countries to produce a bunch of crap, well, not all of it is crap, but we do really make way too much crap that no-one ever asked for, but hey, it's cute... or something.

 

[Octavean]

If you ask me, those fish had it coming!!!

OK, seriously this is tragic. Life, wild or otherwise, is irreplaceable. Even if they throw money at the problem it doesn’t fix the situation.

 

[newtekie1]

How do they not test the waste water in a container or artificial lagoon before releasing it into the nature? This is completely absurd. As it is explained this would be impossible in most European countries, either something would have gone terrible wrong or was intentional.
The US has very weak environmental laws.

It is tested before release when the pond is used to store waste. This pond was never intended for that. It was a storm water retention pond. Samsung dumped the waste down a storm water drain that lead to the pong. The pond was never supposed to have any toxic waste in it.

 

[Space Lynx]

Well, this is Texas, where environmental policies and enforcement are lax. I would think the punishment would be light as well. This is why so many businesses are rushing to set up camps there. It is business friendly.

Texas is great unless you are poor and can't afford the culligan water delivery

 

[R-T-B]

wild how they just somehow managed to setup shop next to a creek.

Almost like there's no one managing the zoning.

 

[Solaris17]

Almost like there's no one managing the zoning.

must have retired after "saving up a bunch of money".

 

[the54thvoid]

Let's not bash Texas folks. No matter what regs they have, this was Samsung's fault.

If you're that angry, boycott Samsung

 

[Shihab]

wild how they just somehow managed to setup shop next to a creek.

Not sure how regulations are in cowboy land, but I'm pretty sure It's generally better to risk a surface water source than a ground one.
Best to risk neither, but muh infotainment systems and talking fridges (and practically any other anthropogenic activity, but since we're hating on modern ones here...)!

Not what you'd call the cleanest of waters though...

View attachment 234705

The Mekong may be heavily polluted, but to be fair, turbidity is not always synonymous to "dirty." Not in this thread's context, at least. Relatively high turbidity is natural and acceptable -perhaps even required- to some ecologies...

 

[eidairaman1]

i bet they will increase prices across the board to compensate the cost of their oopsie...

No bet, they will, i believe these companies do it on purpose

Let's not bash Texas folks. No matter what regs they have, this was Samsung's fault.

If you're that angry, boycott Samsung

Yup has nothing to do with the state itself, remember exxon, BP in the gulf spilling oil.