(Banjul, The Gambia) More than 80 percent of the paint brands included in a study analyzing lead in solvent-based paints for home use in The Gambia sold one or more paint that contained dangerously high total lead content greater than 10,000 parts per million (ppm). The maximum allowed limit in e.g. Cameroon and Kenya is 90 ppm, which is also the recommended limit by UN Environment. Two yellow paints from the brands National and Oasis, both of which were imported from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), contained the highest amount of lead at 100,000 ppm. Furthermore, two paints from the brand Oasis, manufactured by Al Gurg Paints LLC in UAE and advertised as “100% lead free,” contained 100,000 ppm and 65,000 ppm lead. These and other alarming findings are part of a report released today by the Young Volunteers for the Environment (YVE)-The Gambia and IPEN.
Stakeholders including top government officials, academicians, civil society, Nigeria Dental Association, dentists in private practice, institutions, media, development partners and other relevant bodies will converge in Abuja, the nation capital city on Tuesday July 17, 2018 to develop a National Policy on the phase down of dental amalgam use in Nigeria.
Strong indication that Côte d’Ivoire will soon join the committee of nations that had ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the global Convention that seeks to prevent human and physical environment from mercury pollution has emerged as the country is already finalising its papers towards submission to the Convention secretariat.
In Cameroon, plastic bottles, plastic bags, old rubber tyres, end of lives energy saving bulbs, and glass thermometers are frequently and carelessly dumped either on unused land or in water ways, with the risk of transportation to other waterbodies such as lakes or rivers. To eliminate this visual pollution, people living near these spontaneous dumping sites often turn to open burning of waste, with consequences for both ecosystems and human health.
For tens of thousands of people in Western Kenya, gold mining is a way of making a living.
On informal mines across the region, women use mercury to bring out the gold. But a recent study conducted by a network of international charities has found that the chemical could be slowly killing them - and affecting the wider community.