Of course, as consumers, we want cheap and good products; however, if these production processes are exceeding wastewater discharge standards and even causing heavy metal pollution, they will cause long-lasting damage to the ecological environment and public health.
In America, you complain about job losses because of China, but here, we carry all of the environmental costs.
In the future, officials will feel more pressure to protect the environment. But how to assess the officials' efforts to protect the environment is still a pivotal issue.
We firmly believe the environmental issues cannot be addressed without extensive public participation, but people need to be informed before they can get involved.
On April 16, 2010, 34 Chinese environmental organizations, including Friends of Nature, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, and Green Beagle, questioned heavy metal pollution in a letter sent to CEO Steve Jobs.
I think its time to change and balance the environment and growth. If we don't do that, we're going to suffer a hard landing one day very soon.
iPhone4 is sold in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, but it was assembled in China. As the world's center for the processing of IT products, China's environment is paying the price.
Everyone knows the link between the environment and their own health.
Everyone else has some interest in economic growth and development, which often happens at the expense of the environment and community. We need the other side to join this to check and balance.
It has been shown that public participation can limit powerful interest groups, while competing interests can help find a reasonable balance between development and environmental protection.
Even the government understands that the environmental challenge is so big that no single agency can handle it. It needs collaboration among all the stakeholders - companies, governments, NGOs and the public. Public accountability will be the ultimate driving force.
Urban residents, most of them middle class, have a much better sense of their environmental rights, and they're willing to take to the streets.
We copied laws and regulations from western countries, but enforcement remains weak, and environmental litigation is still quite near impossible.
When I look at China's environmental problems, the real barrier is not lack of technology or money. It's lack of motivation.
We must strictly enforce the Environmental Law, closing down the polluters that fail to meet the standards.
The motivation should come from regulatory enforcement, but enforcement is weak, and environmental litigation is near to impossible. So there's an urgent need for extensive public participation to generate another kind of motivation.
Environmental problems cannot be resolved here the way they are resolved in other countries. I heard that 80 per cent of the environmental problems in the U.S. are solved in court. That can't happen here.
Environmental groups are not completely against dams. We approve of appropriate development.
Environmental agencies in China are hamstrung by local officials who put economic growth ahead of environmental protection; even the courts are beholden to local officials, and they are not open to environmental litigation.
China's environmental conundrums will not be solved by changes within government alone. New mechanisms are needed to allow the communities which may be affected by a given plan, and citizens concerned about the environment, to join in.
China leads the world in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and the release of major air and water pollutants, and the environmental impact is felt both regionally and globally.
China is bearing the environmental cost for much of the world because China is the factory of the world.
China has leapfrogged into this information age, and Web users have grown very significantly, which knocked down the cost of doing the environmental transparency.
Brands who come to China, often they just care about price - so they actually drive the suppliers to cut corners on environmental standards to win a contract.
We haven't seen the turning point yet, but we're sticking to our bottom line, for the environment and the health of the country.
We want to use the environment to shift the way our society works.
If major companies sourcing in developing countries care only about price and quality, local suppliers will be lured to cut corners on environmental standards to win contracts.
What we aim to do, through public pressure, is help the environment protection bureau to enforce the law.