(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.
Reports that a defunct computer screen dropped at Officeworks for recycling was shipped to a junkyard in Thailand have renewed calls for Australia to get serious about e-waste controls.
15 August 2018, Quezon City. An ordinance that will protect consumers, especially women and girls, against skin lightening products contaminated with mercury has successfully hurdled the hearing by the Quezon City Council’s Committee on Health and Sanitation.
At the committee hearing held yesterday, August 14, the committee unanimously approved Proposed Ordinance 20CC-439 entitled “An Ordinance Banning the Manufacture, Distribution, and Sale of Mercury-Containing Skin Whitening Cosmetics in Quezon City.
The said ordinance was co-introduced by Councilors Elizabeth Delartmente, Diorella Maria Sotto-Antonio, Irene Belmonte, Kate Abigael Galang- Coseteng, Eufemio Lagumbay, Eric Medina and Marivic Co-Pilar.
