Ending preventable lead poisoning through supply chain accountability

Advancing supply chain accountability through federal and state policy in the U.S., alongside efforts around the world.

By the Numbers

The scale of the crisis

Fig. 01 800 Million children affected by lead poisoning globally^[1]

Fig. 02 1 / 3 Of Poisoning caused by battery recycling^[2]

Fig. 03 $6 Trillion estimated annual global economic cost^[3]

Sources
Pure Earth — Lead Poisoning: Impacts & Sources Crawfurd, Hu & Mitchell — CGD Working Paper 739 Larsen & Sanchez-Triana — The Lancet Planetary Health

The Problem

A preventable crisis, perpetuated by opacity

Toxic lead battery recycling pollutes air, soil, and agriculture and poisons millions of children around the world. That lead then gets shipped to the US.

Lead poisoning kills more people every year than malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV combined. It causes irreversible cognitive damage in children and cardiovascular disease in adults, and lead pollution is consistently linked to violence and crime, exacerbating armed conflict in some of the world's most volatile regions.

Rates of lead poisoning are sky-high in low- and middle-income countries, where at least 1 in 3 children is lead poisoned. For contrast, at the height of the Flint water crisis, 1 in 20 children had been poisoned.

Gordon Binkhorst of Pure Earth crouches to use a hand-held XRF analyzer on the ground as a group of young children watch, in a neighborhood in Kabwe, Zambia. — Gordon Binkhorst, Pure Earth’s Senior Technical Advisor, uses a hand-held XRF (X-ray fluorescence) analyzer to test the level of toxic pollutants in the ground in this neighborhood in Kabwe, Zambia. Almost every single child in this area is impacted by lead exposure. Source: Pure Earth

Share of all children lead-poisoned

Low- & middle-income countries

1 in 3

Flint, at its peak

1 in 20

In many countries, this recycling happens in open fires or uncontrolled smelters that blanket surrounding communities in lead dust, causing irreversible cognitive damage to children living nearby.

Read more about the impacts of lead poisoning on health outcomes and development

Childhood lead exposure lowers IQ, disrupts attention and impulse control, and drives lifelong losses in earnings and educational attainment, harms that compound across a generation and cascade into higher rates of cardiovascular disease, violence, and lost economic productivity for entire communities.

The culprit, in many countries, is ULAB recycling. Unsafe lead-acid battery recycling is the single biggest driver of childhood lead poisoning in low- and middle-income countries.

A November 2025 New York Times investigation tested 70 people living near lead recyclers in Ogijo, Nigeria, home to much of Nigeria's ULAB recycling.

New York Times Investigation

Ogijo, Nigeria

Published November 2025 Sample 70 residents tested

01
Seven in 10 of those tested had lead levels exceeding the WHO limit.
02
Every single worker tested had been poisoned.
03
More than half of children tested had blood lead levels associated with lifelong brain damage.
04
Soil lead levels were up to 186 times higher than hazardous limits.

Source — The New York Times investigation, November 2025

That same investigation tracked the lead produced in dirty factories to US cars. American manufacturers are the dominant buyers of lead from countries with little to no safe recycling capacity. We are underwriting a global health crisis every time we get behind a steering wheel.

Our complicity in childhood lead poisoning is preventable.

The Solution

Transparency changes the calculus

Read our report

Transparency for lead sourcing in the United States would incentivize safe recycling, send a message throughout the lead supply chain that safety is a priority, and enable American consumers to make informed choices about their financial involvement in child lead poisoning.

Incentivizing Safe Recycling

In areas with weak regulatory oversight, lead recycling is a race to the bottom on safety standards. Recyclers who want to switch to safer practices cannot compete with dirty recyclers who bid higher and sell cheaper instead of investing in safe facilities. With the knowledge that they'll get the same price on the US market either way, safe recycling simply isn't worth it.

The low-low equilibrium would be broken by a market incentive to recycle safely. Supply chain pressure everywhere from chocolate to T-shirts to diamonds has shown that industries respond to consumers' awareness about where their purchases come from. Changing the economic calculus for lead recyclers starts with the US market.

A New Demand Signal

The US market can send a demand signal in several ways. Trade policy, including tariffs and countervailing duties, can actively counterweight the “savings” of bypassing basic pollution standards. Industry can make a credible commitment to source only from factories externally certified as meeting basic standards. The leading US battery manufacturer already audits its supply chain for conflict minerals; the same mechanism could be extended to lead. Consumers, too, can show their preference for car batteries that don't sicken and kill millions of people around the world — but to make that informed choice, they'd need to know where their lead-acid batteries come from.

A used lead-acid battery draining and breaking site in Lagos, Nigeria, with a large heap of discarded black plastic battery casings piled across the yard. — A used lead-acid battery (ULAB) draining and breaking site in Lagos, Nigeria. The large pile of plastic is discarded ULAB casings.

Informing American Consumers

American citizens deserve to know whether they are buying batteries that contribute to the poisoning of children in Africa. Companies don't get to obfuscate whether they use GMOs or pay baristas a fair wage; they shouldn't be allowed to hide where their lead comes from, either. A basic transparency requirement, modeled after CA SB 657 or Dodd-Frank Section 1502, would enable American buyers to choose whether the minivan they drive their kids to school in should be powered by a neurotoxic disaster for children halfway around the world.

A father loads coolers and beach gear into the open rear hatch of a red minivan parked in a driveway as his two young children walk up to join him. — Nearly every car in an American driveway runs on a lead-acid battery. Right now, drivers have no way to know where its lead was sourced.

Get in Touch

Work with us

For partnership inquiries, press, or to learn more about our work, reach out directly.

contact@cleanlead.org