RCA Corporation, a now-defunct American electronics company, operated a 7.2 hectare manufacturing plant in Taiwan’s Taoyuan County between 1968 and 1992. During this time RCA discharged toxic organic solvents and heavy metals into secretly-dug wells and brought lasting soil and groundwater pollution on the area.
Many of the plant’s former employees were exposed to the toxins, through inhaling, ingestion and skin contact. Drinking and washing water supplied on the premise – including the employee dormitory – was drawn from polluted groundwater. At least 1,375 former employees were diagnosed with various types of cancer and 216 have died.
In 1986, RCA was bought out by General Electric (GE) and the plant continued to manufacture TV remote controls. In 1988, the French company Thomson Consumer Electronics (TCE) took over operation and eventually discovered the polluting acts. In 1992, the plant was shut down and sold to a Taiwanese company.
In 1994, a legislator made the pollution scandal public. Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration took the emergency measure of supplying local residents with clean bottled water and tap water. In 1996, EPA pressured General Electrics and TCE into investigating and cleaning up. Yet the US$6.7 million clean-up project was of limited efficacy.
Former employees harmed by the pollution has formed a self-help group and gotten support from human rights groups and lawyers’ associations in Taiwan. They continue to demand that General Electrics and TCE further clean-up of the site and give monetary compensation. Litigation formally started in 2009.