More than once Apple’s suppliers in China, Foxconn and UniMicron, have faced serious charges for polluting rivers by dumping factory wastes in them. Also, some environmental groups have alleged that highly contaminated water, blackish green in color with an overpowering odor, has been dumped both from Foxconn and UniMicron plants into nearby rivers, which flow into the Yangtze and Huangpu rivers. Moreover, in 2011, Apple admitted that 137 workers employed by its suppliers had been disabled because of pollution-related diseases they contracted. And in June this year, a Shanghai-based company that supplies components to global giants like Apple and Samsung, was charged for causing serious heavy metal pollution.

It is pollution from such electronics factories that has, according to some estimates, left 25 to 60 million acres of China’s arable land contaminated with heavy metals.

Besides the stage of production, how to dispose is also an acute challenge. Discarded cell phones form a large percentage of e-waste. Official data show that by February this year China had about 1.24 billion cell phone users, many of whom owned two or even three phones, and about 100 million phones are discarded every year.

China still lacks an efficient system to recycle e-waste, and researches have found that workers in the e-waste dumps suffer from inflammation and stress because of the toxic air, which could cause heart disease and cancer, and even damage their DNA. Besides, toxic chemicals found in the soil in and around e-waste recycling sites in China are 10 to 100 times higher. Worse, a United Nations report says that developed countries export most of their e-waste to developing countries, and China is a main destination.

It may take the authorities a long time to strengthen supervision on production of e-products, and to enact specific laws and regulations to curb the dumping and effects of e-waste.

Before that, however, consumers could play a significant part in reducing environmental pollution: if buying a new cell phone is not an absolute necessity, they should think twice before laying their hands on a new model, even if it is iPhone 6.

The author is an editor with China Daily.