An Apple manufacturing facility in Santa Clara, California is misclassifying its hazardous waste and has more than a dozen other “potential violations” of environmental regulations, according to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency. The report, released Friday, found that the site was also improperly treating corrosive chemicals and filtering airborne compounds.
The report, which the EPA said is part of an ongoing investigation of the facility, comes after two inspection visits to Apple’s Santa Clara manufacturing plant in August of 2023 and one follow-up visit in January, based on a “Tip and Complaint from the public.” It details 19 “potential violations” of EPA hazardous waste regulations, five of which Apple resolved in early September, and many of which are “still outstanding” as of the end of April, when the report was issued. The EPA published the documents on its website last week.
The report describes the plant as an “electronic computer manufacturing” facility. Apple acquired the warehouse in 2012 as part of a wider expansion into the area. In 2018, Bloomberg reported that the company was developing microLED screens at the Santa Clara facility. The report details a series of violations that the government expects Apple to fix, which range from not labeling its waste canisters to claiming without justification that its waste is not subject to federal regulations.
The inspection found that Apple had a 1,700-gallon hazardous solvent waste tank labeled as such, but that its contents were being improperly treated as state-regulated hazardous waste. Certain substances in the state of California are not covered by the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). These substances are called non-RCRA hazardous waste (NRHW) or “California Only waste,” and they include substances that contain mercury, corrosive solids, or things that are “toxic for anything except for federal toxicity.”
“To date, Apple has not provided evidence regarding how the spent solvents were determined to be California Only waste,” the EPA report stated. The agency determined that the waste in the tank was “characteristic for ignitability” and should be managed, “at minimum,” as an EPA-regulated ignitable substance.
“The report is an initial observation by EPA’s inspectors; it is not a final determination of facts or liability,” an EPA spokesperson told 404 Media in an email. “Until there is a final determination, EPA cannot comment on ongoing investigations. Federal law provides for penalties and corrective actions upon final determinations of non-compliance. This is an ongoing investigation and EPA cannot further comment.”
The EPA inspections were requested by Ashley Gjøvik, a former Apple employee who was fired in 2021 for allegedly leaking intellectual property and has filed more than a dozen legal complaints against the company alleging labor law violations and retaliation. Most recently, she filed a 650-page lawsuit against the company, the majority of which was dismissed. On Monday, Gjøvik posted the EPA report on X naming herself as the person responsible for tipping off the agency.
The inspection also found that Apple had improperly calculated the effectiveness of the activated carbon filters it used to prevent hazardous chemicals from leaking into the air.
“The purpose of the ‘Activated Carbon’ boxes is to capture any VOCs [volatile organic compounds] introduced to the solvent exhaust system, prior to the vapors being released directly to the atmosphere through the two general exhaust stacks,” the report stated. “Based on the information provided to the EPA, it does not appear that the facility has properly tested the ‘Activated Carbon’ for the purposes of disposal.”
“Apple also does not appear to have included all of the solvent waste streams when calculating the breakthrough times for the ‘Activated Carbon’ boxes to ensure that no VOCs are released into the atmosphere onsite,” the report continued.
The EPA’s observation is that Apple likely did not account for all of its airborne waste in determining when the filters would be broken through and need replacing, meaning that it is possible for some compounds to have escaped a worn out filter. The potential violation lies in the fact that Apple has been mischaracterizing those filters as state-regulated hazardous waste, but provided the EPA with no evidence that its filters should qualify for this less stringent categorization of hazardous waste, according to the report. A 55-gallon canister of activated carbon attached to the 1,700-gallon waste tank had also been treated as NRHW since December of 2020 without proper justification, the report found. The report continued to say that Apple also improperly shipped these filters as NRHW, which “may have resulted in the improper treatment and disposal of this waste stream” under federal regulations.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
The EPA found 19 five-gallon containers of corrosive waste, with a pH of 13.2. The report stated that Apple “does not appear to have performed a waste determination on the spent waste,” which qualifies as regulable by the federal standard because of its pH. “Moreover, Apple does not appear to have a permit to treat its solvent or corrosive waste in the 5-gallon carboy units,” the report states. Apple was additionally missing multiple daily inspection records and labels on numerous waste containers.
