11–20 of 231 posts
If anyone (like me) is looking for a map (which seems to be missing from the article), the per-country data is apparently on https://www.pollution.org .
What's the source of all the lead pollution in central Africa?
I knew about lead poisoning for a while, but mostly in US context. It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned (I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?) If these numbers are true, why this is not on first pages of all media all the time? Crazy. I wonder how reliable are these numbers.
The article is based on a UNICEF report [1], which from a cursory glance seems to suggest that while the problem is present to some degree everywhere, it's by far the most pronounced in East and South Asia (but caused health care costs in relation to GDP is worst in Africa) "One of the most concerning sources of lead exposure is the unsound recycling of used lead-acid batteries (ULABs), most of which are found in car…
If anyone (like me) is looking for a map (which seems to be missing from the article), the per-country data is apparently on https://www.pollution.org .
I knew about lead poisoning for a while, but mostly in US context. It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned (I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?) If these numbers are true, why this is not on first pages of all media all the time? Crazy. I wonder how reliable are these numbers.
It is VERY expensive problem to fix. Cleaning environment, replacing old pipes... Other issues like smoking can be milked on taxes. EU went quite far, even banning lead from solder.
REACH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Auth...
RoHS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...
IMHO REACH didn't go far enough, it should be up to the maker of a chemical to prove that it's safe before it's sold and used.
I knew about lead poisoning for a while, but mostly in US context. It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned (I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?) If these numbers are true, why this is not on first pages of all media all the time? Crazy. I wonder how reliable are these numbers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Saint Lucia: 88,698 Deaths per million Wow. Next highest is Somalia (3,261 dpm)
Deaths per pop statistics are often distorted for tiny countries since a few extra deaths can pull the stat by a lot.
I knew about lead poisoning for a while, but mostly in US context. It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned (I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?) If these numbers are true, why this is not on first pages of all media all the time? Crazy. I wonder how reliable are these numbers.
It is VERY expensive problem to fix. Cleaning environment, replacing old pipes... Other issues like smoking can be milked on taxes. EU went quite far, even banning lead from solder.
If anyone (like me) is looking for a map (which seems to be missing from the article), the per-country data is apparently on https://www.pollution.org .
What's the source of all the lead pollution in central Africa?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is based on a UNICEF report [1], which from a cursory glance seems to suggest that while the problem is present to some degree everywhere, it's by far the most pronounced in East and South Asia (but caused health care costs in relation to GDP is worst in Africa) "One of the most concerning sources of lead exposure is the unsound recycling of used lead-acid batteries (ULABs), most of which are found in car…
Youtube has many extremly scary videos showing battery recycling operations, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvPjOKkPyE
I remain shocked how we in the United States knowingly poisoned generations with leaded gasoline. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-... In searching for a substance that made gasoline less flammable (and hence stopped it from igniting outside of a cylinder, i.e. "knocking") we tried everything including adding melted butter! Lead along with a lot of other things worked well but we went with…