A manufacturer that produces Apple iPad casings faces sanctions from the Shanghai government after discharging waste that turned a river milky white, killing fish and leaving water unfit for use in crop -cultivation.

On the banks of a tributary of the Railway River in the industrial zone of Songjiang, outside Shanghai, a water worker said she was called in on lunar new year’s day after receiving a report that a discharge of waste water had turned the river white, causing residents to dub it the “milky river”.

Grasping a bunch of celery plucked from her garden on the banks of the river, she said incidents of such pollution had occurred weekly since the opening two years ago of the Songjiang number three factory of Riteng, a subsidiary of Taipei-listed Casetek.