Battery increase drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic

Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is 12 years previous however the poisonous lead coursing by way of his veins has left him with the diminutive stature of somebody a number of years youthful.

Akter is certainly one of 35 million youngsters—round 60% of all youngsters within the South Asian nation—who’ve dangerously excessive ranges of lead publicity.

The causes are assorted, however his mom blames his maladies on a since-shuttered manufacturing unit that rapidly scrapped and recycled previous automobile batteries for revenue, within the course of poisoning the air and the earth of his small village.

“It could begin at evening, and the entire space could be stuffed with smoke. You possibly can scent this specific odor while you breathed,” Bithi Akter instructed AFP.

“The fruit not grew through the season. Someday, we even discovered two lifeless cows at my aunt’s home.”

Medical assessments confirmed Junayed’s blood had twice the extent of lead deemed by the World Well being Group to trigger severe, and certain irreversible, psychological impairment in younger youngsters.

“From the second grade onward, he did not wish to take heed to us anymore, he did not wish to go to high school,” Bithi mentioned, as her son sat subsequent to her whereas gazing blankly out on the courtyard of their residence.

“He cried on a regular basis too.”

Lead poisoning isn’t a brand new phenomenon in Bangladesh, and the causes are manifold.

They embody the heavy metallic’s widespread and continued use in paint, in defiance of a authorities ban, and its use as an adulterant in turmeric spice powder to enhance its coloration and perceived high quality.

An amazing many circumstances are blamed on casual battery recycling factories which have proliferated across the nation in response to rising demand.

Youngsters uncovered to harmful ranges of lead threat decreased intelligence and cognitive efficiency, anemia, stunted progress and lifelong neurological issues.

The manufacturing unit within the Akter household’s village closed after sustained complaints from the neighborhood.

However environmental watchdog Pure Earth believes there may very well be 265 such websites elsewhere within the nation.

“They break down previous batteries, take away the lead and soften it right down to make new ones,” Pure Earth’s Mitali Das instructed AFP.

“They do all this within the open air,” she added. “The poisonous fumes and acidic water produced through the operation pollute the air, soil and water.”

‘They’ve killed our village’

In Fulbaria, a village that sits just a few hours’ drive north of the capital Dhaka, operations at one other battery recycling manufacturing unit owned by a Chinese language firm are in full swing.

On one aspect are verdant paddy fields. On the opposite, a pipe spews murky water right into a brackish pool bordered by lifeless lands, caked with thick orange mud.

“As a baby, I used to convey meals to my father when he was within the fields. The panorama was magnificent, inexperienced, the water was clear,” engineer and native resident Rakib Hasan, 34, instructed AFP.

“You see what it seems to be like now. It is lifeless, ceaselessly,” he added. “They’ve killed our village.”

Hasan complained in regards to the manufacturing unit’s air pollution, prompting a choose to declare it unlawful and order the facility be shut off—a choice later reversed by the nation’s supreme courtroom.

“The manufacturing unit purchased off the native authorities,” Hasan mentioned. “Our nation is poor, many individuals are corrupt.”

Neither the corporate nor the Chinese language embassy in Dhaka responded to AFP’s requests for touch upon the manufacturing unit’s operations.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who helms Bangladesh’s setting ministry, declined to touch upon the case as a result of it was nonetheless earlier than the courts.

“We repeatedly conduct operations in opposition to the unlawful manufacturing and recycling of electrical batteries,” she mentioned.

“However these efforts are sometimes inadequate given the size of the phenomenon.”

‘Unaware of the hazards’

Casual battery recycling is a booming enterprise in Bangladesh.

It’s pushed largely by the mass electrification of rickshaws—a previously pedal-powered technique of conveyance widespread in each massive cities and rural cities.

Greater than 4 million rickshaws are discovered on Bangladeshi roads and authorities estimate the marketplace for becoming all of them with electrical motors and batteries at round $870 million.

“It is the draw back of going all-electric,” mentioned Maya Vandenant of the UN youngsters’s company, which is pushing a method to scrub up the business with tighter laws and tax incentives.

“Most individuals are unaware of the hazards,” she mentioned, including that the general public well being impacts are forecast to be a 6.9% dent to the nationwide financial system.

Muhammad Anwar Sadat of Bangladesh’s well being ministry warned that the nation couldn’t afford to disregard the size of the issue.

“If we do nothing,” he instructed AFP, “the variety of folks affected will multiply three or fourfold within the subsequent two years.”

© 2025 AFP