Dhaka Bangladesh. CREDIT: UNSPLASH/CC0 PUBLIC DOMAIN
Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is 12 Years Old But the Toxic Lead Coutory Through Has Veins Has Left Him with the Diminutive Stature of Someo Several Years Younger.
AKTER IS ONE OF 35 MILLION CHILDREN – 60% OF ALL CHILDREN IN THE SOUTH ASIAN NATION – WHE HAE DANGEROUSLY HIGH LEVELS OF LEAD EXPOSURE.
The Causes Are Varied, But Hist Mother Blames Histo Maladies On A Since Shuttered Factory That Hastly Scrapped and Recycled Old Vehicle Batteries for Profit, In the Process Poisoning The Air and the Earth of Hist Small Village.
“IT WOULD START AT NIGHT, AND THE WHELE AREA WOULD BE FILLLED WITH SMoke. You Could Smell This Private Odor When You Breathed,” Bithhi Akter Told AFP.
“The Fruit in the Longer Grew During the Season. One Day, We Even Found Two Dead Cows at My Aunt’s House.”
Medical Tests Showed Junayed’s Blood Had Twice The Level of Lead Deemed by the World Health Organization to Cause Serious, and Likely Irindible, Mental Impairment in Young Children.
“From the Second Grades Onward, He Didn’t Want To Listen To Us Anymore, He Didn’t Want To Go To School,” Bithhi Said, As Her Son Sat Next to Her While Gazing Blankly Out at the Courtyard of Their Home.
“He Creed All the Time Too.”
Lead poisoning is not a new phenomenon in bangladesh, and the causes are manifold.
They include the heavy metal’s widespread and continued use in paint, in defiance of a government ban, and its use an adulterant in Turmeric Spice Powder to Improve its color and perceived quality.
The Great Many Cases are Blamed on Informal Battery Recycling Factories That Have Proliferated Around the Country In Response to Rising Demand.
CHILDREN EXPOSED TO DANGEROUS LEVES OF LEAD RISK DECREEED INTELLIGENCE AND COGNETIVE PERFORMANCE, Anemia, Stunted Growth and Lifelong Neurological Disorders.
The Factory in the Akter Family’s Village Closed After Sustained Complaints from the Community.
But Environmental Watchdog Pure Earth Believes There Could Be 265 Such sites Elsewhere in the country.
“They Break Down Old Batteries, remove the lead and Melt it down to make new Ones,” Pure Earth’s Mitali from Told AFP.
“They do All This in the Open Air,” She added. “The Toxic Fumes and Acidic Water Produced During the Operation Pollute The Air, Soil and Water.”
‘They’ve Kiled Our Village’
In Fulbaria, the Village That Sits a Few Hours’ Drive North of the Capital Dhaka, Operations at Another Battery Recycling Factory Owned by a Chinese Company are in full swing.
On One Side Are Verdant Paddy Fields. On the other, Pipe Spews Murky Water into Brackish Pool Bordered by Dead Lands, Caked With Thick Orange Mud.
“As a Child, I Used to Bring Food to My Father When he was in the Fields. The Landscape Was Magnificent, Green, The Water Was Clear,” Engineer and Local Resident Rakib Hasan, 34, Told AFP.
“You See What It Looks Like Now. It’s Dead, Forever,” He added. “They’ve Killed Our Village.”
Hasan Complained About The Factory’s Pollution, Prompt A Judge to Declare It Illegal and Order the Power Be Shut Off – the decision Later Reversed by the Country’s Supreme Court.
“The Factory Bought Off the Local Authorories,” Hasan Said. “Our country is poor, many people are corrupt.”
NEITHER THE COMPANY NOR THE CHINESE EMCA DHAKA Responded to AFP’S REQUESTS FOR COMMENT ON THE FACTORY’S OPERATIONS.
Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Who Helms Bangladesh’s Environment Ministry, Declined to Comment on the Case Because it was Still Before The Courts.
“We Regularly Conduct Operations Against The Illegal Production and Recycling of Electric Batteries,” She Said.
“But these Efforts Are Often Insufficient Given the scale of the phenomenon.”
‘UNAWARE OF THE DANGERS’
Informal Battery Recycling is a Booming Business in Bangladesh.
IT IS DRIVEN LARGELY BY THE MASS ELECTRIFICATION OF RICKSHAWS-Formerly Pedal-Powered Means of Popular Convening in Both Big Cities and Rural Towns.
More than Four Million Rickshaws Are Found on Bangladeshi Roads and Authorories Estimate The Market for Fitting Them All with Electric Motors and Batteries at Around $ 870 Million.
“It’s the Downside of Going All-Electric,” Said Maya Vandenant of the Un Children’s Agency, Which is pushing a Strategy to Clean Up The Industry With Tighter Regulations and Tax Encourages.
“Most People Are Unaware of the Dangers,” She Said, Adding That the Public Health Impacts Are Forecast to Be A 6.9% of to the National Economy.
Muhammad Anwar Sadat of Bangladesh’s Health Ministry Warned That the country no not afford to ignore the scale of the problem.
“If We do Nothing,” He Told AFP, “The Number of People Affected Will Multiply Three Or Fourfold in the Next Two Years.”
© 2025 AFP
Citation: Battery Boom Drives Bangladesh Lead Poisoning Epidemic (2025, April 1) Retrieved 1 April 2025
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