Haphazard recycling of the used lead-acid battery across the country contaminates soil and water with toxic substances, posing long-term health hazard to people, especially children.
Open-pit battery recycling could contaminate at least three centimetre-depth topsoil and spread over a maximum 500 metre radius area of a recycling site, geologists assessed.
They said lead as pollutant could enter human bodies by dermal contact, inhalation and ingestion making children as the most vulnerable to lead poisoning.
A recent study conducted by Dhaka University geology department spotted 59 lead-contaminated locations out of 147 battery recycling zones in six divisions of the country—Dhaka, Rajshahi, Khulna, Chittagong, Rangpur and Mymensingh.
The study found presence of lead more than 30 microgram per decilitre blood of the people lives around such recycling sites, though World Health Organisation’s permissible limit of lead in human blood is 5 microgram per decilitre.
The study assessed that small volume of lead poisoning could cause long-term neurological problem and mental impairment of children.
US Environmental Protection Agency standardises 400 lead parts per million for soil while the study found soil of the recycling sites and neighbourhoods contaminated with more than 5,00,000 lead parts per million.
The study has rung alarm to bring all the informal battery recyclers into proper regulation, said Department of Environment officials.
Emphasising the importance of bringing the informal battery recycling sector into environment-friendly framework, DoE’s air quality management director Ziaul Haque said extraction and smelting of lead in open coal-fired kilns across the sites expose unabated lead contamination.
Bangladesh Accumulator and Battery Manufacturers Association representative Shahidul Islam said that country’s battery industry consumes about 7,000 tonnes of lead annually, of which, 40 to 60 per cent are imported and the rest are collected from the used battery recycling sites.
Some transformer and electronic manufacturers sell used battery for recycling purpose to the low-bidding open-pit lead recyclers that entertains the unapproved recyclers, he said while addressing a stakeholders’ meeting hosted by DoE on January 10.
DoE’s Dhaka city office director Masud Iqbal Md Shamim, said there should be a proper guideline as some DoE-approved battery recyclers were also found contaminating environment with lead.
DoE additional director general Quazi Sarwar Imtiaz Hashmi said environment and forest ministry had currently restrictive conditions on recycling and trade of recycled lead through two statutory regulatory orders.
‘The decisions came from a January 10 meeting included legal actions against all unapproved or informal battery recyclers across the country and transforming the approved ones to semi or automatic recycling units,’ he said.
Cover photo: Rajib Dhar
Original report was published on New Age. Link: https://www.newagebd.net/article/32824/lead-acid-battery-recycling-poses-health-hazard
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