Energy News
ENERGY TECH
Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic
Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic
By Philippe ALFROY
Mirzapur, Bangladesh (AFP) April 1, 2025

Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is 12 years old but the toxic lead coursing through his veins has left him with the diminutive stature of someone several years younger.

Akter is one of 35 million children -- around 60 percent of all children in the South Asian nation -- who have dangerously high levels of lead exposure.

The causes are varied, but his mother blames his maladies on a since-shuttered factory that hastily scrapped and recycled old vehicle batteries for profit, in the process poisoning the air and the earth of his small village.

"It would start at night, and the whole area would be filled with smoke. You could smell this particular odour when you breathed," Bithi Akter told AFP.

"The fruit no longer grew during the season. One day, we even found two dead cows at my aunt's house."

Medical tests showed Junayed's blood had twice the level of lead deemed by the World Health Organization to cause serious, and likely irreversible, mental impairment in young children.

"From the second grade onward, he didn't want to listen to us anymore, he didn't want to go to school," Bithi said, as her son sat next to her while gazing blankly out at the courtyard of their home.

"He cried all the time too."

Lead poisoning is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh, and the causes are manifold.

They include the heavy metal's widespread and continued use in paint, in defiance of a government ban, and its use as an adulterant in turmeric spice powder to improve its colour and perceived quality.

A great many cases are blamed on informal battery recycling factories that have proliferated around the country in response to rising demand.

Children exposed to dangerous levels of lead risk decreased intelligence and cognitive performance, anaemia, stunted growth and lifelong neurological disorders.

The factory in the Akter family's village closed after sustained complaints from the community.

But environmental watchdog Pure Earth believes there could be 265 such sites elsewhere in the country.

"They break down old batteries, remove the lead and melt it down to make new ones," Pure Earth's Mitali Das told AFP.

"They do all this in the open air," she added. "The toxic fumes and acidic water produced during the operation pollute the air, soil and water."

- 'They've killed our village' -

In Fulbaria, a village that sits a few hours' drive north of the capital Dhaka, operations at another battery recycling factory owned by a Chinese company are in full swing.

On one side are verdant paddy fields. On the other, a pipe spews murky water into a brackish pool bordered by dead lands, caked with thick orange mud.

"As a child, I used to bring food to my father when he was in the fields. The landscape was magnificent, green, the water was clear," engineer and local resident Rakib Hasan, 34, told AFP.

"You see what it looks like now. It's dead, forever," he added. "They've killed our village."

Hasan complained about the factory's pollution, prompting a judge to declare it illegal and order the power be shut off -- a decision later reversed by the country's supreme court.

"The factory bought off the local authorities," Hasan said. "Our country is poor, many people are corrupt."

Neither the company nor the Chinese embassy in Dhaka responded to AFP's requests for comment on the factory's operations.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who helms Bangladesh's environment ministry, declined to comment on the case because it was still before the courts.

"We regularly conduct operations against the illegal production and recycling of electric batteries," she said.

"But these efforts are often insufficient given the scale of the phenomenon."

- 'Unaware of the dangers' -

Informal battery recycling is a booming business in Bangladesh.

It is driven largely by the mass electrification of rickshaws -- a formerly pedal-powered means of conveyance popular in both big cities and rural towns.

More than four million rickshaws are found on Bangladeshi roads and authorities estimate the market for fitting them all with electric motors and batteries at around $870 million.

"It's the downside of going all-electric," said Maya Vandenant of the UN children's agency, which is pushing a strategy to clean up the industry with tighter regulations and tax incentives.

"Most people are unaware of the dangers," she said, adding that the public health impacts are forecast to be a 6.9 percent dent to the national economy.

Muhammad Anwar Sadat of Bangladesh's health ministry warned that the country could not afford to ignore the scale of the problem.

"If we do nothing," he told AFP, "the number of people affected will multiply three or fourfold in the next two years."

Related Links
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
ENERGY TECH
A lifetime power source in miniature form
Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Mar 30, 2025
The batteries that power smartphones, electric vehicles, and drones often require frequent charging and degrade over time, leading to limited lifespan and environmental concerns. Now, a team at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) is exploring a nuclear alternative that could offer decades or even centuries of reliable power without recharging. Su-Il In, a professor at DGIST, presented this breakthrough at the American Chemical Society's Spring 2025 meeting, held March 23-27 ... read more

ENERGY TECH
EU emission target delay sparks worries of climate retreat

Sweden not doing enough to meet net-zero targets: study

Solar and Wind Dominate New Power Installations in January as Biden Era Concludes

UK energy minister in Beijing seeks to press China on emissions

ENERGY TECH
A lifetime power source in miniature form

Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic

Gas injection setup in new fusion system is guided by public-private research

Framatome and Perpetual Atomics to Scale Up Space Battery Production for Future Missions

ENERGY TECH
Chinese energy giant Goldwind posts annual growth as overseas drive deepens

Clean energy giant Goldwind leads China's global sector push

Engineers' new design of offshore energy system clears key hurdle

Student refines 100-year-old math problem, expanding wind energy possibilities

ENERGY TECH
Optical advances offer boost to next-generation solar module designs

Study links solar surge to evening price hikes for fossil energy

Seven universities unite to propel solar projects over California canal system

Modi to kick off construction of India-Sri Lanka solar plant

ENERGY TECH
Framatome and TechnicAtome complete acquisition of valve manufacturer

Framatome to upgrade digital systems at Swiss Leibstadt nuclear facility

WPI researcher to explore efficient uranium extraction from industrial wastewater

Trump floats US takeover of Ukraine's NPPs; Zelensky plays down prospect

ENERGY TECH
Tunisian startup turns olive waste into clean energy

Airlines cast doubt on EU sustainable fuel targets

Eco friendly low-cost energy storage system from pine biomass

Why Expanding the Search for Climate-Friendly Microalgae is Essential

ENERGY TECH
China discovers major new oilfield off Shenzhen

Rubio warns Venezuela of force if it attacks oil-rich Guyana

Just Stop Oil activist group says to stop climate protest stunts

Ugandan environmentalists demand banks halt new funding for oil project

ENERGY TECH
Dutch climate group says suing top bank ING

'We are not in crisis': chair of IPCC climate body to AFP

Amplified warming risks from long-term climate and carbon feedbacks

COP30 president vows to defend global climate fight

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.