Nigerian battery recyclers ‘poisoned by hazardous practices’

Extensive research by the New York Times (NYT) claims that recycling lead in Nigeria for use in US car batteries is poisoning workers and children living nearby.

Journalists have reported on toxic soot billowing from basic and unregulated factories in the town of Ogijo. More than 20 000 people live within a mile of the factories, where batteries are often hacked apart by hand.

Blood tests

Seventy people living near and working in the factories volunteered to have their blood tested by the NYT and the Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates global health. Seven of 10 are said to have had harmful levels of lead.

Tests on more than half the children assessed in Ogijo returned levels that could cause lifelong brain damage.
The reporters say dust and soil samples showed lead levels up to 186 times higher than those generally recognised as hazardous. Experts told them the results indicated many local people were probably being poisoned.

Opaque supplies

Manufacturers use the Nigerian lead to make batteries for major carmakers and retailers such as Amazon, Lowe’s and Walmart. The NYT report argues that, because the supply chain is opaque and diffuse, ‘car companies and battery makers are unlikely to know the precise origins of the lead they use. They rely on international trading companies to supply it’.

According to NYT, the largest US manufacturer Clarios said it did not buy lead from West Africa. The second-largest, East Penn Manufacturing, a family-owned company Lyon Station, Pennsylvania, has done so.

East Penn executives are reported to have told journalists that lead shortages forced it to rely on brokers and under 5% came from Nigeria. They added that, after being approached by NYT, the company had stopped buying Nigerian lead and tightened its supplier code of conduct.

Nigerian officials have recently closed five smelters, following the outcome of the tests on local people.