Environmental health, child health advocates, governments, and paint industries are coming together this week from October 25 to 31 for the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action.
KATHMANDU, Oct 30: Environmental health, child health advocates, governments, and paint industries are coming together this week from October 25 to 31 for the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action.
The Philippines marks this year’s International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (ILPPW) with the historic phase-out of paints containing lead additives as backdrop.
The ILPPW, which will take place from October 25th until the 31st, is an initiative of the UN-backed Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint with this year’s edition focusing on the need to accelerate progress towards the global phase out of lead paint through regulatory and legal measures.
Quezon City, Philippines/Gothenburg, Sweden In the first public study of its kind, environmental health groups EcoWaste Coalition and IPEN uncovered spray paints with dangerous lead concentrations — some samples containing levels hundreds of times higher than global standards — on sale in the Philippines in violation of the country’s law banning lead in paints.
The report shows that nearly half of the spray paints tested exceeded the total lead content limit above 90 parts per million (ppm), and nearly a third contained levels higher than 10,000 ppm. Samples were obtained from various retail outlets, including hardware stores, home improvement centers, general merchandise marts, school and office supplies shops, in 20 cities and one municipality in Metro Manila and various parts of Luzon.
Several of the spray paints containing lead were imported from countries with existing, legally-binding lead paint regulations, such as China and Thailand. The Philippine Association of Paint Manufacturers (PAPM) confirmed that none of the analyzed samples in this study was produced by one of its affiliates.
