An article from The Intercept on 14 June considered the example of Home Depot’s Lifeproof line: vinyl planks made to look like wood that lock together without glue. The article says that the story of vinyl flooring begins 6,600 miles away in the Xinjiang region of north-western China, where it is intertwined with the persecution of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs. Home Depot itself says that it prohibits the use of forced or prison labour in its supply chain. However, a newly-issued report asks all companies that source from China — including Home Depot — to scrutinise their supply chains. It is said that the report has major implications for the retailers and marketers of flooring, and there are a lot of people walking around their homes right now on floors that are virtually certain to be made in part with forced labour. In the report, researchers focus in part on a flooring factory in Vietnam called Jufeng New Materials that supplies Lifeproof tiles to Home Depot, via a Georgia-based company called Home Legend.
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/14/china-uyghur-forced-labor-pvc-home-depot
The report, “Built on Repression”, is available at –
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