IPEN Participating Organizations Champion Lead Paint Elimination, Children’s Health Protection in 2025 International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week

The International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) and its participating organizations (POs) worldwide will join forces with their local and global partners for the 2025 International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (ILPPW) on October 19-25.  Various activities are being planned around the world to raise awareness about the health effects of lead exposure; highlight the efforts of countries and partners to prevent lead exposure, particularly in children; and push for the completion of action to eliminate lead paint through regulatory action at the country level.  

IPEN members will advocate for the promulgation and enforcement of lead paint bans, and the listing of lead chromates in the Rotterdam Convention to control the global trade of these lead-based pigments and lead paints. Lead chromates are the main pigments used to make lead paint, but there is no requirement for exporters to inform countries when they are sending the toxic pigments across their borders. Listing lead chromates under the Convention would require Prior Informed Consent for their import - critical information countries need to enforce bans on lead paint.

Lead paint is a well-known source of lead exposure, with particular risks for children who face serious health threats from even very low levels of lead exposure. Childhood lead exposure damages the developing brain, as well as the nervous, immune, reproductive and cardiovascular systems, with a range of adverse effects including loss of IQ, attention deficit disorder, hypertension, and other physical and behavioral problems. Often, these effects are permanent, irreversible, and untreatable. Some countries, including China, Niger, Mexico and others have recently seen progress in policies to ban lead paint, but about half of the world’s countries still lack comprehensive rules to end lead paint sales, leaving millions of children at risk of lead poisoning.

“It is past time to end the scourge of lead paint globally,” said Manny Calonzo, of EcoWaste Coalition in the Philippines and a former IPEN Co-chair. “We call on governments, industry, and civil society to work for stronger national and global policies to act now and eliminate this toxic threat to our children’s health.” In 2018, Manny was awarded the Goldman Prize for his work to eliminate lead paint in the Philippines.

IPEN members have been working to end the use of lead paint since 2007 and have been active in ILPPW activities since the inception of the week of action in 2013. This year, IPEN members in over thirty countries are taking part in the week of action, with activities including testing childcare centers for lead paint in Thailand, advocating for the urgent signing of a decree regulating lead in paint in Benin, using lead-safe paints to create a mural in a public park in the Philippines, testing paints for lead in Argentina, and many others.

IPEN advocates for listing lead chromates under the Rotterdam Convention, a global treaty establishing a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure for trade in toxic substances. A 2024 report by IPEN found that that while the EU and other countries have banned the use of lead chromates, they continue to allow production and export of this paint ingredient, putting children and families in recipient countries at risk from lead poisoning. By listing lead chromates under the Convention’s PIC procedure, countries that ban lead paint will be better equipped to enforce their bans, and countries without lead paint restrictions will be incentivized to adopt a ban.

Since 2007, IPEN member groups have collected and analyzed more than 5,000 paints in 59 countries and conducted awareness raising using the testing data. This work has supported development and adoption of lead paint regulations in more than 30 countries, with close to 40 more countries developing regulations. But more work needs to be done to end lead paint globally, including by regulating the trade in lead chromates.

“Our work has demonstrated the value of regulations to ban lead paint – in many countries, our testing has shown that regulations have resulted in reductions in lead paints sold,” said Jeiel Guarino, IPEN’s Global Lead Paint Elimination Campaigner. “During this year’s International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action, we must address the double-standard that allows wealthy countries to export lead chromates and regulate this toxic trade. It’s time to finish the job and ban lead paint to stop this poisoning of our children.”

See more on IPEN’s 2025 ILPPW page.