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Meet Blacksmith’s Global Team

Apr 29

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Blacksmiths global team

Blacksmith's global team

Blacksmith experts from around the world gathered  in New York in early April to discuss remediation work in their home countries, share ideas and plan future projects.

Among them are lecturers, doctors, engineers, researchers and other pollution and public health experts, who bring with them knowledge of the local community. Many have worked with the environment ministries of their countries, and some are founders of local and regional NGOs. Meet some of our global team below and find out what Blacksmith is doing from Kenya to Tajikistan.

Yaw Osei - Ghana

GHANA

Yaw Amoyaw-Osei is Blacksmith’s expert in Ghana, which houses one of the world’s most notorious e-waste dump sites – the Agbogbloshie recyclers market. Yaw previously worked with Ghana’s enviornmental agency conducting research on e-waste and helping to raise awareness about the problem. Phillip Raburu - Kenya

KENYA

“If villagers living in areas with high levels of toxic pollutants are poisoned and fall sick, they would always attribute it to witchcraft,” says Phillip Raburu.  ”This is because health facilities in Kenya never investigate toxins in the blood as a routine. Lack of positive diagnosis of known diseases is normally attributed to witchcraft.”  As a lecturer at the university teaching environmental issues and an active participant in community-based environmental activities, Raburu feels that experts should not speak from their ivory towers but instead, should connect with locals in their language to make impacts of toxic pollutants easier to understand.

Promila Sharma - IndiaINDIA

“A lot of people do not know that great things are happening in India,” says Promila Sharma. She explains that cleanup efforts take time but that real change is coming. She has helped Blacksmith identify and assess over 400 polluted sites in the country. The government now has a national plan for rehabilitating the worst of these sites. Leyan Wang

CHINA

Leyan Wang has been working on a pilot project to detox polluted rice paddies in China. She says there is a food contamination problem in areas where chemicals have polluted the farmland and the crops grown on them. Sometimes, Leyan tells us, local farmers sell their contaminated crops, which end up in the food supply. As a result, the produce that people buy in supermarkets and other stores might be contaminated.

Roath Sith - CambodiaCAMBODIA

Roath Sith is helping Blacksmith assess polluted sites in Cambodia, including many contaminated by PCBs. The chemicals, he says, end up in the food supply. Roath used to train youths to debate environmental issues on television. That government program was very successful in raising awareness about pollution in the country. In the countryside, he used to work with monks to talk to villagers about the environment. Duong To - Vietnam

Nguyen Trinh Huong - VietnamVIETNAM

When an American plane went down in North Vietnam during the war, the story goes that a villager knew how to smelt down the plane for valuable aluminum. Today, that village is one of thousands of toxic “craft” villages that dot the Vietnamese landscape. Duong To and Nguyen Trinh Huong are working with Blacksmith on a plan to clean up this polluting legacy.

Budi Susilorini - indonesiaINDONESIA

Among other projects, Budi Susilorini is working with Blacksmith in Indonesia to test the borax method, which eliminates the use of toxic mercury in the gold mining process. Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of gold. Over 300,000 artisanal miners (including many children) release more than 1000 tonnes of toxic mercury every year. While Budi and her team have assessed hundreds of hotspots in Indonesia, she tells us that there are still many more. Larah ortega ibanez - Philippines

PHILIPPINES

Larah Ortega Ibañez oversees a variety of projects for Blacksmith in the Philippines, including both research and cleanup. Larah is currently preparing for a large-scale project aimed at reducing heavy metal contamination in fishponds in the river systems surrounding Manila.

Daniel Estrada - MexicoMEXICO

“Blacksmith is working in collaboration with the Mexican Government to solve a 500-year-old toxic problem,” says Daniel Estrada.  Traditional Mexican potters use toxic lead glazes to produce the colorful and popular wares that are used to cook and serve food every day.  The children of these artisans are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning because of their smaller bodies and developing brains. Many have high levels of lead in their blood.  Daniel is working on getting these potters to switch to a non-toxic glaze.  He also works on the Toxic Sites Identification Program in Mexico.

Lilian Veas - Chile

CHILE

Lilian Veas is part of Fundacion Chile, a nonprofit organization that partners with the Chilean Government and private enterprise to share technology and knowledge to help the country deal with challenges and opportunities. She oversees Blacksmith’s Toxic Sites Identification Program in Chile. A chemical engineer, Lilian has extensive experience dealing with evironmental health issues and contaminated sites.

URUGUAY

Many informal settlements are located on or near contaminated sites in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and cleaning them up is a priority of the local government. Dr. Amalia Laborde’s background as a clinical toxicologist is extremely useful in her work with Blacksmith in Uruguay. She is the Director of the Toxicology Department at the Medical School of the Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay and also the head of the Pedriatic Environmental Unit at the State Administration of Health Services.

ARGENTINA

As a pediatrician/neonatologist, Dr. Lillian Corra has done extensive work to raise awareness about children’s health in relation to the environment. She is the Director of the Medical Specialist Program on Health and Environment at the School of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires. She connects with global aid agencies and South American governments on behalf of Blacksmith, which acts as Secretariat of the new Global Alliance on Health and Pollution. She also works with on the Toxics Sites Identification Program in Argentina, which has, in some cases, led local authorities to halt development on contaminated sites.

Johny Ponce, PeruPERU

Johny Ponce has been working on environmental health projects for 15 years.  Currently, he works with Blacksmith on the Toxic Sites Identification Program in Peru and coordinates with the local authorities to share expertise in toxic sites management and cleanup. Johny, who has a PhD in Environmental Health, is a professor and a researcher at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. He is also the president of the Center for Research in Environmental Health (CREEH Perú).

Petr Sharov, Russia

RUSSIA

Petr Sharov manages the Toxics Sites Identification Program in Russia and helps oversee Blacksmith’s work in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. He has a Masters degree in environmental science and is the founder and president of the nonprofit Far East Environmental Health Fund. Petr managed a lead cleanup project that was recently completed in the Russian Far East, and is currently publishing a paper describing the activities and results.

Ulugov Umidjon Amonovich - Tajikistan TAJIKISTAN

Ulugov Umidjon Amonovichis (Umed) is a lawyer and the Deputy Director of the nonprofit group Youth of the 21st Century in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he seems to know everyone! He has consulted on a variety of international projects, and is active in many environmental and human rights advocacy issues. Umed is currently working on a proposal to help the government review its current chemicals policy and create a national strategy to identify and remediate toxic hotspots. Dr. Rovshan Abbasov - Azerbaijan

AZERBAIJAN

Dr. Rovshan Abbasov is an Associate Professor at Kazar University, teaching classes on environmental science, geography, disaster management, water resource management, climate chance, and related issues. Rovshan has consulted on projects for a variety of international organizations, including the World Bank and OXFAM.  His team has identified and screened over 50 sites in the first year of Blacksmith’s Toxic Sites Identification Program in Azerbaijan. Blacksmith is now working with the relevant ministries in Azerbaijan to create a national strategy to address abandoned waste sites, and to design a pilot cleanup project.

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India’s Amazing Pollution Story

Apr 15

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Our latest post appeared in the Indiaspora blog, reproduced below. Join us on May 7, 2013 for Blacksmith’s Benefit for India.

An Undesirable Export

Recently, the nonprofit I work with received a letter from a man who said he was writing to us as a “last resort.” He was asking for help dealing with toxic pollution in his neighborhood in India, half a world away from our offices in New York. This exchange reflects what pollution is – a problem with no boundaries.

On May 7, Blacksmith Institute will host its first ever Benefit for India to raise awareness and support for pollution cleanup work in India. The event, to be held in New York, will serve as a rallying point for the Indian American community (and their friends) to direct help back to India. Why? Because pollution in India is not just an Indian problem. Pollution is a global issue with worldwide ramifications. While pollution affects those living or working near the source of contamination the most, it also travels, affects the global economy, and accelerates the deterioration of the environment for everyone. This is why pollution in India should be our concern as well.

According to the World Bank, by 2020, India’s water, air, soil and forest resources will be under more human pressure than those of any other country. With over a billion industrious people all striving to make a living, India must find a way to sustain its economic growth without exposing its residents to the deadly health impacts from pollution.

Children are especially at risk. Young developing minds and bodies can be devastated by prolonged exposure even to low doses of pollution, resulting in I.Q. losses and a battery of other lifelong ailments. About 1,000 Indian children reportedly die of pollution-related illnesses every day. At the current rate, India could lose a whole generation, and part of its future, to pollution.

But there is good news.

“The India story is truly amazing,” says Karti Sandilya, the guest of honor at the Blacksmith Benefit for India. “Within the next few years, ten of India’s worst polluted sites should be dealt with.”

“These are large sites that Blacksmith assessed, compiled in an inventory, and shared with the Indian government. The government has set up a fund to clean the ten worst sites” explained Sandilya, the former US Resident Director of the Asian Development Bank and a Blacksmith advisor.

“But there are still many small polluted sites in India and that’s where India Americans can help,” says Sandilya. “If they can channel resources and support to India through Blacksmith, we can start tackling the thousands of small sites scattered all throughout the country.”

Small sites perhaps like the one described by our letter-writer. He believes a battery manufacturer situated in the middle of his densely populated neighborhood is responsible for the daily pollution. He writes about obnoxious smells spewing from the factory’s chimney, and he says his family, including a ten-month old baby, has difficulty breathing. To make things worse, he fears the factory is expanding and he feels that there is nothing he can do about it.

“Does the law permit this kind of polluting?” he asks.

Well, the answer is no. Under India’s Environment Protection Act of 1986 and other regulations, the storing and manufacturing of hazardous chemicals is not permitted inside a densely populated area. But due to weak enforcement of regulations, we believe that what our letter-writer is experiencing is not unusual.

Factories in India often pollute with little consequences, while many small, informal mom-and-pop operations, which are responsible for much of the pollution, fly under the radar. These small operators have little incentive or resources to clean up their act.

For example, many Indian families recycle lead-acid batteries, the kind found in every car or truck, for a living. They break the batteries by hand in their yard, and smelt the toxic lead they collect in their kitchens. Even if they understand that their families are being poisoned, few will or can stop the practice because it is their livelihood. And that problem is getting worse.

“People who have bicycles now have scooters, and those who have scooters now have cars. So there are lot of batteries all over country,” says Sandilya. “Every town has underground battery operations. Only half of all batteries in India are recovered and recycled by the battery manufacturers with some kind of controls. 50% is done by backyard operators.”

The other big problem is tannery waste. Many Indians, including children, work with toxic chemicals in tanneries with few safeguards because for them, making a living, even in the most poisonous surroundings, is better than not making a living at all.

And so, toxic pollutants have permeated the Indian landscape, especially the waterways, where untreated industrial waste is often dumped. Add to this the estimated 32,000 million liters of untreated sewage that flows into the country’s rivers every day, and you have a “ticking health bomb.”

The Indian pollution story is not that different from what is happening in China, and what has happened in the U.S. and in Europe. Industrialization brings pollution but it is a problem that can be solved using lessons we have learnt globally.

For example, Blacksmith is working to get pollution scrubbers used by manufacturing plants around the world installed in factories in India to stem the flow of toxic waste. In Muthia, Blacksmith used worms to “eat” up toxic heavy metals from some 2,750 tons of industrial waste dumped in this village in Gujarat. Vermiculture is a low-cost technique that can be easily replicated at toxic hotspots around the world. In Kanpur, Blacksmith introduced elements into the groundwater to trigger a reaction with the toxic hexavalent chromium pollutant, causing it to bind to rocks and preventing it from contaminating water. This is a technique that has been used successfully in various countries for years.

So May 7 join us in New York to help fight pollution in India. All of our lives are intertwined across borders through economies, culture, families, and friends. This is what the letter-writer in India understands. He is not alone. We can all help by sharing and supporting solutions and ideas. In India, change has already begun with the upcoming cleanup of the ten large polluted hotspots. Now help us tackle the rest. More information about the event can be found at www.blacksmithbenefit.org.

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Mercury Negotiations Recharged With Hot Chocolate and Cookies

Feb 14

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Fernando Lugris, chair of the INC negotiations (left), with representatives of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution at INC5.

I attended the INC5 mercury negotiations in Geneva last month along with members of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) from the EU, UNEP, UNIDO, and GIZ, and representatives from SAICM and various countries including Peru and Uruguay. We were there to share information about the GAHP and we did it with the help of “sweet breaks.”

So in the no-nonsense arena of the INC5 negotiations, where 750 participants from more than 140 countries huddled together for over a week, we set up tables filled with hot chocolate, cookies and colorful cupcakes to provide respite for the weary.  It turns out, the treats played a small but welcome role on the sidelines of the talks, which produced an agreement between more than 140 countries on rules to curb mercury pollution.

Bringing different groups together is what Blacksmith does on many of our remediation projects, and over the years we’ve learnt that sometimes all it takes is something simple to get people to come to an agreement. The treats refreshed and recharge participants and also provided the opportunity for casual connections. I like to think that the many valuable side conversations about pollution and mercury that took place over cookies and hot chocolate left an impression on the proceedings.

In business, many deals have been sealed over dinner and drinks. The path to a cleaner world, I believe, follows the same general course. It is all about building relationships. The GAHP is the result of an international coalition – a network of relationships – that took hold over years of conversations.  Now, we at the GAHP are extending our hands to low-and middle-income countries in need of help to deal with pollution issues. Along the way, I am sure we will share numerous meals and cups of tea with representatives at every level. We will talk, discuss, exchange ideas and work together to get rid of pollution.  And when the cleanup is done, we will look back and remember how that conversation started, over hot chocolate and sweet treats in the middle of a crowd.

Related: Q and A about the GAHP and mercury

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Pollution Lessons from History

Jan 28

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News about pollution has lately been dominated by reporting on China’s increasingly toxic air, water and land.  All this attention is crucial because it is the catalyst to change. We don’t know when or where, but change is bound to happen if we look at the history of industrialization. After all, what China is going through now has more or less already happened in the U.S. and Europe. Here are examples of a few pollution disasters that led to change:

  • In 1936, the Cuyahoga river in Cleveland, Ohio became so polluted that the water erupted into flames. Over the next 30 years, the river caught fire several more times until 1969, when a major fire prompted an outcry and action.
  • In 1948, about 40 people were killed and more than 7,000 became seriously ill as the result of a lethal haze over Donora, Pennsylvania. This led to the first federal attempt to control air pollution.
  • In 1952, what’s now known as the Great smog engulfed London, reportedly killing approximately 12,000 people.

Today, the problem of life-threatening pollution has been solved for the most part in U.S. and Europe.  While pollution still exists to some extent, it is nowhere near the levels they were at a century ago, and most of the worst contamination has been cleaned up.  As a result, none of the hotspots on Blacksmith’s list of world’s worst polluted places are in the U.S. or Europe.

The lesson that history is teaching us is that there is a solution to the pollution problem.  All we need is:

  1. attention to focus the forces of change
  2. resources to conduct cleanup
  3. Education, incentives and regulations to stop current pollution and prevent future contamination

The lessons and solutions learned from pollution prevention work in the U.S. and Europe can be applied to the rest of the world. The template for change already exists.  All we need to do is to make it accessible and provide support for change.  One way we are working to make this happen is through the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). By coming together and sharing resources, we can make sure that in this instance, history will repeat itself.

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Protecting Children in Schools

Jan 10

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As we’ve been harshly reminded, schools can sometimes be exposed to great danger. The tragedy last month got me thinking about what we are doing in schools in Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan. Although the threat is different, the response is the same – we are working to reduce the risks and make things safer.

Mailuu-Suu was where the Soviet Union mined uranium for the first atomic bomb. Since then, residents have been living with this tragic legacy.  Radiation literally flows out of the taps in Mailuu-Suu.  But you wouldn’t immediately spot the danger just by looking at the water or the surroundings.

Mailuu-Suu school cafeteriaIn one school’s neat cafeteria (pictured), where pretty pink curtains frame the windows, and rows of tables are set with lace tablecloths and colorful mugs, children were eating food cooked with contaminated water every day.  Overlooking the room, as if to obscure Mailuu-Suu’s position as one of the world’s worst polluted places, is a poster of a pristine lake flanked by lush mountains and trees. Outside, the children were washing their hands and faces, and drinking water filled with radioactive particles out of a tap in the yard.  Mailuu-Suu’s schools were preparing these children for a bright future, which they might not have because of the constant, everyday poisoning.

It is a complex problem that cannot be solved quickly.  The contamination is everywhere.  We had to start somewhere. So what we did was to focus on reducing the risks to the most vulnerable. We began installing water filters in schools and the hospital.

Child getting blood test, Mailuu-Suu

Child getting blood test, Mailuu-Suu

While each filter is supposed to last for 3 years, in Mailuu-Suu they are useless after just 9 months because of the severe levels of contamination. Until the entire community is cleaned up, we will just have to keep replacing these water filters.  It is the last line of defense for these children.

It is not the ideal solution but it is working.  It is reducing the health risks to these children.  There is still much work to do and the threat remains.  But we cannot just do nothing and we cannot wait for a perfect solution. We must do what we can to make a difference now.  This is true in Mailuu-Suu.  And it is true here in the U.S.

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From Elections to Pollution – Data is Key

Nov 9

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One of the most interesting outcomes of this U.S. election is that it has reminded us that data is king.

Nate Silver from the New York Time’s FiveThirtyEight blog has become a celebrity of sorts for coming up with data that predicted the election results almost to a T.  The art and science of collecting, interpreting and presenting data is vital because it can give us a clearer picture of everything, from elections to global issues. Remember what Al Gore did for global warming in the film “An Inconvenient Truth?”  I’d like to think that in a similar way, our recently-released 2012 World’s Worst Pollution Problems report will help push the increasing support for pollution cleanup over the edge because for the first time, we have data about pollution’s terrible toll worldwide.

For years, the true scope of pollution’s impact has been as murky as the contaminated landscape itself. Measuring and collecting data on pollution is complicated because there are so many types of toxins and sources involved, causing a wide range of diseases that affect communities in multiple ways.

In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted the Disability Adjusted Life Year or DALY as a measure of disease burden. DALY is expressed as the number of life years lost not only from early death but also from disability and ill health. Chronic headaches, for example, are given a lower value in the DALY metric than more severe health outcomes such as blindness or cancer.

Using this method, WHO began to calculate the health toll of diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV to show what those diseases were doing to the global community.  Today, the fight against those diseases is going strong partly because we know what the stakes are. We have the data.

In last year’s report we began to calculate the toll of pollution in select contaminated sites using data from the Toxic Sites Identification Program - our ongoing  survey of the world’s worst polluted hotspots. This year, we built on that effort to calculate, for the first time, the impact of pollution on health in 49 countries. As a result, we can now see that industrial pollution causes as much damage and suffering as some of the world’s most dangerous diseases (see a comparison of DALY numbers). With data in hand, it has become increasing clear that we have to fight toxic pollution as hard as we fight TB, malaria and HIV.

Without data, pollution is invisible. With data, we can see what’s coming and take action.

Read a selection of coverage about the 2012 World’s Worst Pollution Problems report here in The Guardian, Huffington Post, The Atlantic, Toronto Star, and the leading medical journal The Lancet.

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One-Stop Shop For Pollution Solutions

Sep 14

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Retailers figured it out a long time ago. They could improve business if they made shopping easier. So they began to offer consumers everything they might need under one roof. Hence the success and popularity of one-stop shops. In a way, we are applying the same concept with GAHP, our one-stop shop for pollution solutions. The newly formed GAHP, or Global Alliance on Health and Pollution, will make pollution cleanup easier for low and middle-income countries looking for help.

While the international community has resources available to help clean up toxic pollution, navigating the process can be daunting. Expertise is available from different organizations and agencies depending on the type of toxin, the source of pollution, and where the hotspot is located. Often countries are plagued by more than one type of pollution problem, making the task of looking for help even more complex. The time and effort taken to find the right match can delay life-saving cleanup.

With GAHP, that process is now simplified. Instead of having to “shop around,” countries can now turn to one source – the GAHP – to access multiple lines of support. This is how it works. GAHP is made up of an unprecedented international alliance of members that include the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and UNIDO, among other agencies. All GAHP members have an interest in fighting pollution. They just have different expertise and rules governing their operations. By banding together, they can help fill the gaps. If one member cannot offer a complete solution, maybe two or three working together can.

Whenever a country seeks help, GAHP members get together to see who can help with what. For example, one GAHP member might have a program that targets lead cleanup, while another may only deal with education. Working together, they can help a country clean up lead-contaminated hotspots AND establish an education program to prevent further pollution.

Different GAHP members might also get together to help a country deal with a range of pollution problems. For example, in the Philippines, GAHP members convened to strategize on how they could help the government solve its toxic pollution problems. The USAID Philippines mission expressed interest to deal with artisanal gold mining issues in the country, while the World Bank plans to support a US$50 million initiative to begin cleanup of the Marilao-Meycauayan-Obando river system. Meanwhile, Blacksmith will continue to provide technical assistance and support for smaller remediation projects. Before the meeting, activities in the Philippines in this area were piecemeal, and there was no large institutional support for dealing with problems at scale.

What we are trying to do with GAHP is to make pollution cleanup easier. If cleanup is easier, we believe more cleanups will take place. GAHP is the first ever one-stop shop for the world’s pollution fighting needs. Our doors are open.

To join GAHP or seek GAHP help, contact the GAHP Secretariat at info@gahp.net

Read about the GAHP in the Huffington Post: Global Alliance to Fight Toxic Pollution

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Gold Mining in Tanzania

Jul 10

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Child gold miners in Tanzania. Credit: Madeline Cottingham and Evan Simon.

Recently, a young environmentalist, who had done some work for Blacksmith, returned from Tanzania with some fascinating photographs and stories to share.

Madeline and her friend Evan were there to help the Kilimanjaro Hope Organization (KIHO), a small NGO established by four local activists to solve environmental issues in rural villages.

In Gonja, high in the remote Pare mountains, the pair saw and documented the damage a gold rush can do in just a couple of years. Here is what they told us:

We spent a week in Gonja, a rural mountain village, where illegal small-scale gold mining has polluted the village’s only river and primary water source. The pollution was highly visible. The mining released a metallic sediment into the river that would form a red sheen on the surface of the water. Our host, Seraphine Mngullu, grew up in Gonja. After taking us to the river he told us that just two years ago, before gold was discovered in Gonja, the water was clear. When we visited, the water was a pale brown mush. Additionally, the mines litter the sides of the riverbank, eroding nearby farmland and drying the river to a stagnant stream.

Life in Gonja has been altered by gold mining. Once a traditional farming village, the area has been plagued by drought, forcing villagers to seek additional income. The discovery of gold has shifted the local economy. Children, as young as eight, are dropping out of school to work in the mines to provide for their families.

The locals are very aware of the dangers from the mining process. Gonjans halted all agricultural and municipal use of their water.  The river was their only source for water and if it hadn’t been for the work of KIHO, they might have never recovered.  KIHO helped Gonjans discover a spring further up the Pare Mountains and built a pipe that carried the water down to their village.

Gonjans feel strongly that gold mining has irrevocably changed their village for the worse. One local told us, “It is very sad, what has happened to the river.” Gold mining is viewed as a way to provide for their families when there are no other options.

See more photographs and read from field notes from a warming land. All images are by Madeline Cottingham and Evan Simon.

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New Lead Limits for U.S. Children Expose Plight of Others

Jun 12

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Children at the site of the world's worst outbreak of lead poisoning in Nigeria

The CDC recently lowered the recommended limit for lead exposure in young children from 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, to 5. This means that lead levels above 5 ug dl in children will now be considered unsafe.

What’s interesting is that according to a CDC spokesperson, “…as we remove lead from the environment, it’s expected that this reference level will be going down, because we still want to be identifying children at the highest levels.”

So as the number of children in the U.S. with unsafe lead levels fall and we come closer to eliminating childhood lead poisoning in this country,  perhaps we might see the CDC tolerance for lead in young children drop to zero since, really, no level of lead is considered safe in children.

What this tightening of lead standards exposes is the great divide between children in the U.S. and those in some of the world’s worst polluted places.

Lead poisoning accounts for at least 0.6% of the global burden of disease (WHO, 2009). Blacksmith considers it one of the world’s worst pollution problems.  The problem is pretty much contained in the U.S., where much of the risk from lead comes from old lead paint and plumbing in houses built before 1978, as well as some imported products that escape inspection. But in countries where there is little regulation, the lead numbers registered in children tell a devastating story.

Keeping in mind that levels around 45 ug dl are considered acute, take a look at some of these figures we’ve come across.

  • In Haina in the Dominican Republic, a hotspot of lead contamination because of improper battery recycling, we have seen blood lead levels as high as 234 ug dl.
  • In 2009, a  lead poisoning outbreak in Senegal went undetected until 18 children died. The highest lead levels recorded in children between one and five years-old was 158 ug dl.
  • In Nigeria, the high price of gold prompted a mini gold rush in 2010, and villagers took to mining the lead-rich ore. This resulted in the world’s worst outbreak of lead poisoning.  Over  400 children were killed.  Lead levels as high as 150 ug dl were recorded. (see photos)
  • In Mexico, where many of the country’s 50,000 potters use toxic lead-based glazes, we found 10-year old twins Lupita and Juan with blood lead levels of 20 and 27 ug dl respectively. They are typical of the children in these artisan communities.

In all the above examples, blood lead levels in the children dropped dramatically after remediation efforts. But even if we achieve 50% decreases, none of the children will reach the new U.S. standard of 5 ug dl.

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Mother’s Day in some of the world’s worst polluted places

May 9

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This Mother’s Day, as we celebrate, thank and honor our mothers for all the things they do for us, I thought I would share some images of mothers in some of the world’s worst polluted places.

I see them all the time when I visit polluted hotspots where, really, no one should be living.  I see them going about their daily, often back-breaking work, many times with children in tow.  Like many moms the world over, these women are often too busy taking care of daily necessities to do anything else, let alone ponder the extremely contaminated environment in which they happen to live.

But these women are often the key to change once they realize their children are being poisoned.  They are the ones we usually work with to raise awareness about pollution in their communities and what they can do to keep safe, until the cleanup is completed. So to these mothers on the frontlines of pollution… thanks. We are working on giving them the ultimate Mother’s Day gift – a poison-free home.

Taking a break from scavenging at a dumpsite in India

Mother and child living near the contaminated Kharkai river in eastern India

A woman extracting gold from ore in Senegal, with children and food nearby. There are over 4.5 million women and some 600,000 children who are involved in artisanal gold mining around the world, and who are exposed to direct contact with toxic mercury used in the process.

Daily housework in the middle of Ghana's notorious Sodom and Gomorrah e-wasteland - the Agbogbloshie market.

Mother sleeping with her child in the middle of Ghana's Agbogbloshie market, where most of the world's e-waste ends up.

A Blacksmith team can be seen in the background doing some site testing

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