Possible China supply chain disruption due to pollution crackdown - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 09:33:41 am
content: I'd be surprised if PCB manufacturers aren't affected by this... PCBs are a messy business at the best of timeshttp://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/10/23/559009961/china-shuts-down-tens-of-thousands-of-factories-in-unprecedented-pollution-crackdown

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 10:10:31 am
content: That's interesting. It's the right thing to do though. Perhaps local PCB business will be competitive instead(I just got quoted £150 for a 3-off eurocard versus about £50 from far east!?!?!)

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 10:55:33 am
content: I don't expect much to happen in the long term. The Chinese are extremely inventive and the government is known to be quite corrupt especially at the lower levels... "When there's a will, there's a way"...

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 03:48:25 pm
content: It might affect some of the old, poorly invested, PCB plants. The good ones have massively reduced their pollution levels, largely as a byproduct of investing in production methods that are more cost effective.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 05:40:56 pm
content: Better now than never.."The consumers of China don't want red and blue rivers. They don't want to see gray skies every day."Good, it's about time that this happened.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 08:31:58 pm
content: It seems the Chinese government is going for an all or nothing approach. I'm curious to see how long it lasts, and whether any positive effects are achieved. There's certainly room for some improvements when it comes to the environment.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 09:37:00 pm
content: What about recyclers? Lots of them in China.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 10:03:42 pm
content: As facilities become more and more automated, labor costs become less and less significant.Convenience and shorter turn around time is a big plus. is it worth paying three times as much to save a few days? It might be if other aspects of the service were superior.. or if PCB costs are a low enough fraction of what the finished device can be sold for.Quote from: bd139 on October 24, 2017, 10:10:31 am

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2017, 10:06:41 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on October 24, 2017, 10:03:42 pmThere are plenty of stories on here where manufacturers outsourced production to China themselves.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2017, 03:22:53 am
content: You mean reselling a chinese PCB house's work and skimming off the profit?Thats what business schools tell them to do.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2017, 06:32:37 am
content: QuoteRecycling (gold reclamation and such) can be an extremely messy business. The chemistry involved can be pretty nasty.See:

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 26, 2017, 11:58:37 am
content: Actually some of the solar cell manufacturers also pollute rather badly, dumping their chemical byproducts rather than treating them properly. If I recall it's the smaller companies that act like this.

author: AndyC_772
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2017, 12:10:31 pm
content: Quote from: daqq on October 26, 2017, 06:32:37 amRecycling (gold reclamation and such) can be an extremely messy business. The chemistry involved can be pretty nasty.I'm not sure which is nastier; the process itself, the virtual certainty that the by-products were simply dumped once the process was completed, or the music that these videos have dubbed over them for no reason whatsoever.