IPEN Participating Organizations PAN- Ethiopia; CREPD- Cameroon; CJGEA- Kenya; and AGENDA- Tanzania have jointly issued a press release with Oeko-Institut on the health and environmental hazards facing many Africans from recovery of lead from waste batteries, the practice commonly referred to as Used Lead Acid Battery (ULAB) recycling. Partners in four African countries and Germany made a study on the recycling practices involved, which was found to cause fatal lead poisoning to the workers in the recycling facilities and surrounding communities:
Freiburg/Berlin: When the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) meets in Nairobi on Monday, its agenda will include one of the new and major health and environmental hazards facing many African countries today: the recovery of lead from waste batteries. In sub-Saharan countries, in particular, unsound recycling practices cause severe and even fatal lead poisoning of the people working in and living around small and industrial-scale lead smelters, including children. This is just one of the findings of the broad cooperation project initiated by Oeko-Institut that involved African environmental organisations in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
The United Nations Environment Programme called marine plastics the “new toxic time- bomb.” Marine plastic is not only entangling and drowning wildlife, it is being mistaken for food and ingested along with its toxic contaminants. Marine plastics, and, in particular microplastics, provide a global transport medium for the most toxic chemicals into the marine food chain and ultimately, to humans.
IPEN supports the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal in its efforts to petition the U.S. White House to uphold international law and stop shielding Dow Chemical from accountability for corporate crimes in Bhopal, India.
On December 3rd, 1984, in the middle of the night, thousands of people were gassed to death because of a catastrophic chemical leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. More than 150,000 people were left severely disabled, and 22,000 people have since died of their injuries. For these reasons the Bhopal gas disaster is widely acknowledged as the world's worst-ever industrial disaster. Find out more about the tragedy on the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal's website.
The United States and European Union are negotiating a new trade agreement called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This agreement is a threat to the EU’s ability to protect people from toxic chemical exposure.
On 24 April a leading Russian television program called "HEALTH" was focused on the negative health effects of lead, including those from lead in paints. Data received by IPEN / Eco-Accord project in Russia was presented.
