Lead-Based Paints: Where and Why Are They Still Sold?
Lead-Based Paints: Where and Why Are They Still Sold?
Lead compounds are typically added to oil-based enamel paints as pigments, or to improve opacity and durability. Lead-based paints have been implicated in children's poisonings since at least 1904, when lead toxicity in several Australian children was traced to disintegrating lead-based paint on the porches of their homes. Within a few years, several nations in Europe and elsewhere began banning lead in certain household paints.
In the United States, a voluntary standard limited lead in interior paints beginning in 1955. But the country did not ban lead-based consumer paints outright until 1977, when it capped the allowable concentration at 600 ppm, or 0.06% of the weight of the total nonvolatile content of the paint. In 2009 that limit dropped to 90 ppm. Nevertheless, the issue remains alive in U.S. homes and courtrooms, with a costly ongoing effort to make millions of old homes safe for children, and legal battles seeking money to pay for remediation from companies that once sold lead-based paints.
"This posed an obvious question—what about paints being sold in Asia for Asians? There was very little attention given to that," says Jack Weinberg, senior policy advisor at the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), a coalition of environmental and health groups that has been testing the lead content of decorative paints for sale in numerous developing nations and working to get lead-based paint banned. Belarus, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Tanzania, and beyond—everywhere researchers looked, enamel paints with striking levels of lead were being sold freely.
As for how this could be, so long after wealthier countries abandoned lead in residential paints, Weinberg says inertia is largely to blame. "Nobody was paying attention," he says. Lead-based pigments are marginally cheaper for some products, he explains, but mainly they've simply been around for a long time, are easy to produce, and are widely available. "Some argue lead pigments are more durable, more protective, or have better colors, but these claims are highly debatable and, I think, don't hold up," Weinberg says. "In the absence of a legal requirement, a lot of companies just do it."
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What Are Decorative Paints?
In 2009, at the second International Conference on Chemicals Management in Geneva, representatives of more than 120 countries voted to support a global partnership to phase out lead-based paints and tasked the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) with organizing the effort. The partnership, called the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint (GAELP), launched in 2010. Members include IPEN and other citizen groups, a paint industry group, and government agencies from the United States, Honduras, Cameroon, Paraguay, and Switzerland. Toward the goal of eliminating lead in paints by 2020, alliance members raise public awareness, encourage governments to pass regulations, and educate paint companies about suitable alternatives to lead.
In October 2013 GAELP members released a trove of new data in conjunction with an international public awareness campaign. One installment was a UNEP-funded study and report carried out by IPEN and its local partners that detailed lead-testing results from 234 cans of enamel decorative paints purchased in nine countries: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia, and Uruguay. Paints with greater than 10,000 ppm of lead were identified in all the countries but Chile and Uruguay, and paints with greater than 99,000 ppm turned up in Argentina, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.
Chile and Uruguay were bright spots. These countries had banned paints with lead above 600 ppm, and indeed, most of their paints contained low levels. Argentina has a similar ban but still had high-lead paints on store shelves. Nevertheless, the report concluded that regulations can work. Separate reports from IPEN partners in Paraguay and Russia bring to at least 40 the number of countries in which lead-based decorative paints have recently been documented.
IPEN and its partners in its Asian Lead Paint Elimination Project just released a new report on seven Asian countries where they had previously discovered lead-based paints and begun pushing to eliminate them: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Although lead-based paints were still widely sold in each of these countries, several of the region's large paint companies apparently eliminated lead across their decorative paint lines. Sri Lanka and the Philippines enacted mandatory regulations limiting lead in paints, and Bangladesh, Nepal, and Indonesia are considering how best to do so. Thailand and India set voluntary standards.
(Enlarge Image)
Where Are Lead-Based Decorative Paints Still Sold?
Getting the Lead Out
Lead compounds are typically added to oil-based enamel paints as pigments, or to improve opacity and durability. Lead-based paints have been implicated in children's poisonings since at least 1904, when lead toxicity in several Australian children was traced to disintegrating lead-based paint on the porches of their homes. Within a few years, several nations in Europe and elsewhere began banning lead in certain household paints.
In the United States, a voluntary standard limited lead in interior paints beginning in 1955. But the country did not ban lead-based consumer paints outright until 1977, when it capped the allowable concentration at 600 ppm, or 0.06% of the weight of the total nonvolatile content of the paint. In 2009 that limit dropped to 90 ppm. Nevertheless, the issue remains alive in U.S. homes and courtrooms, with a costly ongoing effort to make millions of old homes safe for children, and legal battles seeking money to pay for remediation from companies that once sold lead-based paints.
"This posed an obvious question—what about paints being sold in Asia for Asians? There was very little attention given to that," says Jack Weinberg, senior policy advisor at the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), a coalition of environmental and health groups that has been testing the lead content of decorative paints for sale in numerous developing nations and working to get lead-based paint banned. Belarus, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Tanzania, and beyond—everywhere researchers looked, enamel paints with striking levels of lead were being sold freely.
As for how this could be, so long after wealthier countries abandoned lead in residential paints, Weinberg says inertia is largely to blame. "Nobody was paying attention," he says. Lead-based pigments are marginally cheaper for some products, he explains, but mainly they've simply been around for a long time, are easy to produce, and are widely available. "Some argue lead pigments are more durable, more protective, or have better colors, but these claims are highly debatable and, I think, don't hold up," Weinberg says. "In the absence of a legal requirement, a lot of companies just do it."
(Enlarge Image)
What Are Decorative Paints?
In 2009, at the second International Conference on Chemicals Management in Geneva, representatives of more than 120 countries voted to support a global partnership to phase out lead-based paints and tasked the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) with organizing the effort. The partnership, called the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint (GAELP), launched in 2010. Members include IPEN and other citizen groups, a paint industry group, and government agencies from the United States, Honduras, Cameroon, Paraguay, and Switzerland. Toward the goal of eliminating lead in paints by 2020, alliance members raise public awareness, encourage governments to pass regulations, and educate paint companies about suitable alternatives to lead.
In October 2013 GAELP members released a trove of new data in conjunction with an international public awareness campaign. One installment was a UNEP-funded study and report carried out by IPEN and its local partners that detailed lead-testing results from 234 cans of enamel decorative paints purchased in nine countries: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia, and Uruguay. Paints with greater than 10,000 ppm of lead were identified in all the countries but Chile and Uruguay, and paints with greater than 99,000 ppm turned up in Argentina, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.
Chile and Uruguay were bright spots. These countries had banned paints with lead above 600 ppm, and indeed, most of their paints contained low levels. Argentina has a similar ban but still had high-lead paints on store shelves. Nevertheless, the report concluded that regulations can work. Separate reports from IPEN partners in Paraguay and Russia bring to at least 40 the number of countries in which lead-based decorative paints have recently been documented.
IPEN and its partners in its Asian Lead Paint Elimination Project just released a new report on seven Asian countries where they had previously discovered lead-based paints and begun pushing to eliminate them: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Although lead-based paints were still widely sold in each of these countries, several of the region's large paint companies apparently eliminated lead across their decorative paint lines. Sri Lanka and the Philippines enacted mandatory regulations limiting lead in paints, and Bangladesh, Nepal, and Indonesia are considering how best to do so. Thailand and India set voluntary standards.
(Enlarge Image)
Where Are Lead-Based Decorative Paints Still Sold?