"From African shantytowns to the backstreets of China’s cities, small-scale businesses that recycle the lead from auto batteries are proliferating. Experts say the pollution from these unregulated operations is a lethal threat – with children being the most vulnerable to poisoning."
"Phyllis Omido thought her baby son had malaria — until doctors discovered he was being poisoned by her breast milk, which contained dangerous levels of lead emitted by a battery recycling plant close to her home in Mombasa, Kenya. She quit her job at the plant and launched a campaign that eventually shut it down.
On the other side of Africa, in Senegal, at least 18 children died in just three months from encephalopathy — toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant in a suburb of Dakar had damaged their brains. The ground around the plant was so contaminated that residents were collecting the soil in their homes to sieve out the lead for sale. Hundreds more children in the neighborhood were poisoned.
In California last month, the state auditor reported that thousands of homes, along with schools and parks, in a 3.4-mile-wide zone around a former battery recycling factory near Los Angeles remained contaminated, because of delays in a $650-million cleanup that the now-bankrupt former factory owner, Exide Technologies, will not fund."
Fred Pearce reports for Yale Environment 360 November 2, 2020.
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