Lead battery recycling is a growing hazardous industry throughout Africa. We investigated potential soil contamination inside and outside formal sector recycling plants in seven countries. We ...collected 118 soil samples at 15 recycling plants and one battery manufacturing site and analyzed them for total lead. Lead levels in soils ranged from < 40–140,000mg/kg. Overall mean lead concentrations were ~23,200mg/kg but, average lead levels were 22-fold greater for soil samples from inside plant sites than from those collected outside these facilities. Arithmetic mean lead concentrations in soil samples from communities surrounding these plants were ~2600mg/kg. As the lead battery industry in Africa continues to expand, it is expected that the number and size of lead battery recycling plants will grow to meet the forecasted demand. There is an immediate need to address ongoing exposures in surrounding communities, emissions from this industry and to regulate site closure financing procedures to ensure that we do not leave behind a legacy of lead contamination that will impact millions in communities throughout Africa.
•Soil lead contamination was found at lead battery recycling facilities in Africa.•Mean lead concentrations were 2600mg/kg in soil on the outside of plants.•Lead pollution at these sites poses significant health risks to the public.•Lead contamination at these plants suggest that extensive remediation is warranted.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Objective: We reviewed the sources of lead in the environments of U.S. children, contributions to children's blood lead levels, source elimination and control efforts, and existing federal ...authorities. Our context is the U.S. public health goal to eliminate pediatric elevated blood lead levels (EBLs) by 2010. Data sources: National, state, and local exposure assessments over the past half century have identified risk factors for EBLs among U.S. children, including age, race, income, age and location of housing, parental occupation, and season. Data extraction and synthesis: Recent national policies have greatly reduced lead exposure among U.S. children, but even very low exposure levels compromise children's later intellectual development and lifetime achievement. No threshold for these effects has been demonstrated. Although lead paint and dust may still account for up to 70% of EBLs in U.S. children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that ≥ 30% of current EBLs do not have an immediate lead paint source, and numerous studies indicate that lead exposures result from multiple sources. EBLs and even deaths have been associated with inadequately controlled sources including ethnic remedies and goods, consumer products, and food-related items such as ceramics. Lead in public drinking water and in older urban centers remain exposure sources in many areas. Conclusions: Achieving the 2010 goal requires maintaining current efforts, especially programs addressing lead paint, while developing interventions that prevent exposure before children are poisoned. It also requires active collaboration across all levels of government to identify and control all potential sources of lead exposure, as well as primary prevention.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Lead‐carbon batteries could provide better performance on high‐rate partial‐state‐of‐charge (HRPSoC) cycles than lead‐acid batteries (LABs), making them promising for the new‐generation of hybrid ...electric vehicles. The addition of carbon allotropes to the negative active material (NAM) could induce a significant improvement to the battery performance. Herein, an environmentally friendly strategy is demonstrated to prepare lead oxide and carbon (PbO@C) composite by pyrolyzing the lead citrate precursor derived from the spent lead paste of LABs. When the PbO@C composite is used as an additive to the NAM of lead‐carbon batteries, the utilization efficiency of the NAM is improved from 56.9% to 72.5%, and the cycle life of the cell in HRPSoC is tremendously extended by four times compared with the control one. The enhancement in battery performance is attributed to the hydrophilic carbon in the composite, which acts as a 3D electroosmotic pump facilitating electrolyte diffusion, and hindering the tendency to excess sulfation during the HRPSoC operation. This proposed research provides a sustainable and scalable strategy to recycle the discarded/spent LABs into high‐performance lead‐carbon batteries.
An environmentally friendly strategy to prepare lead oxide and carbon (PbO@C) composites by pyrolyzing the lead citrate precursor recycled from discarded lead‐acid batteries (LAB) is demonstrated. This study will shed light on the development of the advanced electrode materials for lead‐carbon batteries and provide an alternative strategy to combine the recycling of discarded LAB with reutilization in next‐generation lead‐carbon batteries.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Lead is one of ten hazardous chemicals of public health concern and is used in more than 900 occupations, including the battery, smelting, and mining industries. Lead toxicity accounts for 1.5% ...(900,000) of deaths annually in the world. In Indonesia, reports of high Blood Lead Level (BLL) were associated with residency in Used Lead Acid Battery (ULAB) recycling sites. The present study aims to investigate the BLL and the evidence of lead toxicity of children living in an ULAB recycling site in Bogor Regency, Indonesia. A cross-sectional study involving 128 children aged 1-5 years was conducted in September-October 2019. The socio-economic factors, BLL, nutritional status, and hematological parameters, were evaluated. Data were analyzed by univariate and bivariate using the Chi-Square test. Socio-economic factors revealed only 2.3% children have pica and 10.9% children have hand-to-mouth habits. Majority of parents had low income, education, and have stayed in the village for years. Analysis on BLL revealed that 69.5% children had BLL of >10 μg/dL, 25% had abnormal BMI, 23.4% had underweight, 53.9% had stunting, 33.6% had anemia, and 22.6% had basophilic stippling. The average BLL and hemoglobin levels of respondents were 17.03 μg/dL and 11.48 g/dL, respectively. Bivariate analysis revealed that children with high BLL had double risk of having underweight and protected from stunting. Analysis on the association between BLL and BMI for age revealed a higher risk to have abnormal BMI. The high BLL also had 1.017 times risk of developing anemia, and almost doubled risk of having basophilic stippling, although they were not statistically significant. In conclusion, the high BLL of children living in the ULAB recycling indicates that lead exposure as well as lead toxicity are still occurring in Cinangka Village, and alerts to the need for a systematic action to mitigate the exposure.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The purpose of this article is to consider alternate uses of the blood lead reference value for children. There are two possible approaches. Historically the reference value has been used to guide ...clinical and public interventions for individual children. As the distribution of blood lead levels in the population has been lowered over time, the blood lead level at which interventions are recommended has also been reduced. The use of a reference value of 3.5 μg/dL, based on the 98 percentile of blood lead levels for children in 2011-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey is under review. For several reasons, adopting the new reference value to guide clinical and public health management puts practitioners in an untenable position. First, the changes in the brain caused by lead are significant and persistent. However, these adverse impacts are subtle and although clearly identified at the population level, not predictive for individual children. In addition, the recommended interventions have not been shown to reduce blood lead levels once they are elevated. Finally, clinical laboratory and office-based blood lead testing devices are not required to quantify blood lead levels < 4 μg/dL and in many cases cannot reliably test for low blood lead levels. Revising the reference value also will undoubtedly result in diversion of resources away from those population-based interventions which have demonstrated success. We argue for second approach, in the management of lead poisoning in the US from one of evaluation and management at the individual level to one of population based primary prevention. This would require a strategy directed at controlling or eliminating lead in children's environment before they are exposed. The reference value, as a benchmark, is essential to ensure that primary prevention efforts are successful.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Lead poisoning is globally concerning, yet limited testing hinders effective interventions in most countries. We aimed to create annual maps of county-specific blood lead levels in China from 1980 to ...2040 using a machine learning model. Blood lead data from China were sourced from 1180 surveys published between 1980 and 2022. Additionally, regional statistical figures for 15 natural and socioeconomic variables were obtained or estimated as predictors. A machine learning model, using the random forest algorithm and 2973 generated samples, was created to predict county-specific blood lead levels in China from 1980 to 2040. Geometric mean blood lead levels in children (i.e., age 14 and under) decreased significantly from 104.4 μg/L in 1993 to an anticipated 40.3 μg/L by 2040. The number exceeding 100 μg/L declined dramatically, yet South Central China remains a hotspot. Lead exposure is similar among different groups, but overall adults and adolescents (i.e., age over 14), females, and rural residents exhibit slightly lower exposure compared to that of children, males, and urban residents, respectively. Our predictions indicated that despite the general reduction, one-fourth of Chinese counties rebounded during 2015–2020. This slower decline might be due to emerging lead sources like smelting and coal combustion; however, the primary factor driving the decline should be the reduction of a persistent source, legacy gasoline-derived lead. Our approach innovatively maps lead exposure without comprehensive surveys.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
This ecologic study notes that fetal death rates (FDR) during the Washington DC drinking water “lead crisis” (2000–2004) peaked in 2001 when water lead levels (WLLs) were highest, and were minimized ...in 2004 after public health interventions were implemented to protect pregnant women. Changes in the DC FDR vs neighboring Baltimore City were correlated to DC WLL (R 2 = 0.72). Birth rates in DC also increased versus Baltimore City and versus the United States in 2004–2006, when consumers were protected from high WLLs. The increased births in DC neighborhoods comparing 2004 versus 2001 was correlated to the incidence of lead pipes (R 2 = 0.60). DC birth rates from 1999 to 2007 correlated with proxies for maternal blood lead including the geometric mean blood lead in DC children (R 2 = 0.68) and the incidence of lead poisoning in children under age 1.3 years (R 2 = 0.64). After public health protections were removed in 2006, DC FDR spiked in 2007–2009 versus 2004–2006 (p < 0.05), in a manner consistent with high WLL health risks to consumers arising from partial lead service line replacements, and DC FDR dropped to historically low levels in 2010–2011 after consumers were protected and the PSLR program was terminated. Re-evaluation of a historic construction-related miscarriage cluster in the USA Today Building (1987–1988), demonstrates that high WLLs from disturbed plumbing were a possible cause. Overall results are consistent with prior research linking increased lead exposure to higher incidence of miscarriages and fetal death, even at blood lead elevations (≈5 μg/dL) once considered relatively low.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
Background and Objectives: Between November 2007 and March 2008, 18 children died from a rapidly progressive central nervous system disease of unexplained origin in a community involved in the ...recycling of used lead-acid batteries (ULAB) in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal. We investigated the cause of these deaths. Methods: Because autopsies were not possible, the investigation centered on clinical and laboratory assessments performed on 32 siblings of deceased children and 23 mothers and on 18 children and 8 adults living in the same area, complemented by environmental health investigations. Results: All 81 individuals investigated were poisoned with lead, some of them severely. The blood lead level of the 50 children tested ranged from 39.8 to 613.9 µg/dL with a mean of 129.5 µg/dL. Seventeen children showed severe neurologic features of toxicity. Homes and soil in surrounding areas were heavily contaminated with lead (indoors, up to 14,000 mg/kg; outdoors, up to 302,000 mg/kg) as a result of informal ULAB recycling. Conclusions: Our investigations revealed a mass lead intoxication that occurred through inhalation and ingestion of soil and dust heavily contaminated with lead as a result of informal and unsafe ULAB recycling. Circumstantial evidence suggested that most or all of the 18 deaths were due to encephalopathy resulting from severe lead intoxication. Findings also suggest that most habitants of the contaminated area, estimated at 950, are also likely to be poisoned. This highlights the severe health risks posed by informal ULAB recycling, in particular in developing countries, and emphasizes the need to strengthen national and international efforts to address this global public health problem.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Surma is a traditional eye cosmetic used as an eyeliner for infants in Afghanistan, as well as in many other countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Surma has been reported to contain lead ...and to be a potential source of lead toxicity in children, which can lead to permanent damage to multiple organ systems. To our knowledge, assessment for lead in surma found in Afghanistan has not been performed. We determined the quantitative lead content of a convenience sample of 10 surma products acquired in Afghanistan. Analysis revealed that 70% of surma samples contained high levels of lead (range 35–83%). The remaining samples contained low levels of lead (range 0.04–0.17%).
Conclusion
: The majority of surma samples contained very high levels of lead, a troubling finding that could potentially correlate with lead toxicity in Afghan children. Making available lead-free surma alternatives and providing health education, for both healthcare professionals and the general population, in locations where surma use is prevalent and for those involved in care of refugees and immigrants from Afghanistan, may be strategies to prevent lead poisoning in children.
What is Known:
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Surma is a traditional cosmetic used as an eyeliner for infants in Afghanistan as well as in many countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
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Surma has been reported to contain lead and to be a source of lead toxicity in children.
What is New:
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Assessment for lead content in surma found in Afghanistan has not been performed.
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In this convenience sample of 10 surma products acquired in Afghanistan, 70% contained very high levels of lead.
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DOBA, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, VSZLJ, ZAGLJ
Childhood lead exposure has devastating lifelong consequences, as even low-level exposure stunts intelligence and leads to delinquent behavior. However, these consequences may be more extensive than ...previously thought because childhood lead exposure may adversely affect normal-range personality traits. Personality influences nearly every aspect of human functioning, from well-being to career earnings to longevity, so effects of lead exposure on personality would have far-reaching societal consequences. In a preregistered investigation, we tested this hypothesis by linking historic atmospheric lead data from 269 US counties and 37 European nations to personality questionnaire data from over 1.5 million people who grew up in these areas. Adjusting for age and socioeconomic status, US adults who grew up in counties with higher atmospheric lead levels had less adaptive personality profiles: they were less agreeable and conscientious and, among younger participants, more neurotic. Next, we utilized a natural experiment, the removal of leaded gasoline because of the 1970 Clean Air Act, to test whether lead exposure caused these personality differences. Participants born after atmospheric lead levels began to decline in their county had more mature, psychologically healthy adult personalities (higher agreeableness and conscientiousness and lower neuroticism), but these findings were not discriminable from pure cohort effects. Finally, we replicated associations in Europeans. European participants who spent their childhood in areas with more atmospheric lead were less agreeable and more neurotic in adulthood. Our findings suggest that further reduction of lead exposure is a critical public health issue.
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