At the peak period there were perhaps 5,000- 6,000 electroplating factories. These all required large amounts of heavy metals for use in electroplating. Every day hundreds or thousands of tons of waste water including lead, copper, cadmium, and mercury were dumped into irrigation ditches.
極盛時多達上萬的電鍍廠，需要大量重金屬做為電鍍材料，每天成百上千噸的含鉛、銅、鎘、汞廢液，源源傾洩進灌溉水圳裡。