IPEN

IPEN has released its first Global Lead Paint Elimination Campaign newletter, and it features information about a recent meeting held in Ethiopia where African leaders committed to set legal limits on lead in paint, as well as highlights from the 2015 International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. These highlights include activities from NGOs in Bangladesh, Belarus, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mauritius, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. 

Read the newsletter here.

中文 (Chinese)

(Beijing, China) A new study on lead in decorative paints sold in China released today by Insight Explorer and IPEN finds that more than half of the paints analyzed exceed Chinese lead regulations. Moreover, even when paint brands offer paint with lower levels of lead, consumers have no way of knowing it because very few of 141 paint cans analyzed in the study carried information about lead content on the label.

“The health impacts of lead exposure on young children’s brains are lifelong, irreversible and untreatable,” said Pan Qingan, Project Director of China Heavy Metal Pollution Map. “We are limiting our children and our nation’s future intellectual development even though safe and effective alternatives are already in use and widely available in China. We must reduce this critical source of lead exposure to young children.”

Former IPEN Co-Chair (and current Senior Advisor) is featured in this article from Verandah Magazine:

From a tiny village in the Northern Rivers to representing Civil Society at the UN, Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith has been fighting against chemical pollution for decades – and now, she’s pleased to report, PFOA (Teflon) has been nominated for an international ban.

At the time, it seemed like a rural idyll. Move with your child from a polluted inner city to beautiful small acreage, build a home in the bush, and live a more natural lifestyle. “That’s what I thought, anyway,” says long-term environmental campaigner and now Ballina resident and global citizen Mariann Lloyd-Smith.

Participants of UNEP workshop agreed that African countries should adopt a lead limit for all paints of 90 parts per million.

en français

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Government officials and stakeholders from 15 African countries joined by their counterparts from around the world at a workshop jointly organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Persistent Organic Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) in Addis Ababa agreed to cooperate to phase out the use of lead in paint by 2020.

The release of lead into the environment poses significant risks to human health and the environment. World Health Organization lists lead exposure as one of the top ten environmental health threats globally. No level of lead exposure is safe for people, and children are especially vulnerable. Paints that contain lead additives pose a risk of lead poisoning, especially for young children.