In Africa, used lead-acid batteries are recycled under hazardous conditions. Blood tests in a community outside Lagos, Nigeria, show that lead even enters the human body. The lives of workers, villagers and children are at risk. 

In Ipetoro village, two hours East of Lagos, Nigeria, rain can be a dangerous affair. Then the main road turns into a river, and mixes with the effluent from the community’s metal recycling unit. Here, the company Everest Metal Nigeria Limited discharges of possibly toxic effluents. Recently a cow drank the water – and died instantly. The company also releases its smoke unfiltered. 

Everest, run by an Indian businessman, makes huge profits from recycling lead- acid batteries. The lead produced in this and other Nigerian recycling units is extracted and exported, and currently traded at 1955 Dollars per ton at the London Metal Exchange. The business brings wealth to Everest and jobs to the villagers. 

However, the lead hunger in the
industrialized world puts at risk lives in
Ipetoro. When a medical team came to the village to test blood lead levels of the inhabitants, 39 out of 40 patients had lead levels above ten micrograms per deciliter. The community’s average: 20.6 μg/dl. According to the World Health Organization, the immune, reproductive and cardiovascular systems are already affected by relatively low levels of exposure to lead – that is, less than 10 μg/dl. Workers inside the factory had levels up to 42.3. The blood test were conducted with the device “Lead Care II” from the US bioscience company Magellan Diagnostics and financed by the European Journalism Centre. 

Children are especially vulnerable to the lead, as it can attack the brain, cause behavioural changes and retarded development. In Ipetoro, the blood of all tested children contained toxic levels. Around 200 students learn in the Christheirs Nursery and Primary School, situated right next to the recycling unit. 

Photos taken inside the Everest premises secretly show hazardous work conditions. Smoke escapes from the rotary furnaces unfiltered, workers handle battery waste without personal protective equipment – a clear violation of the UN’s Basel Convention which controls and regulates hazardous waste. The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment has not issued Everest a license so that exports are currently illegal. However, a British trader continues to sell Everest material across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Via a German buyer, even Johnson Controls, the world’s largest car battery manufacturer, has obtained the illegal material. 

Our parallel investigation carried out in seven recycling plants for lead-acid batteries across two Nigerian states found that none of the factories complied with the minimum standards of the International Lead Association. Companies dispose of battery acid into the environment or fail to provide personal protective equipment for their workers.