Your Document-Electric Library

PHILIPPINES: VILLAGE WAGES DAILY BATTLE AGAINST LEAD POLLUTION

( Inter Press Service English News Wire )

MANILA, Aug. 26 (IPS) -- Each time Julita Tiangco and her family
sit down to eat the vegetables and rice they harvested from their
small plot of land, they fear that they are slowly poisoning
themselves.
Tiangco knows that lead levels are unusually high in the water,
soil and vegetation in Barangay Patubig in Marilao, Bulacan, north
of Manila, site of the Philippines' biggest lead smelter.
"We used to be able to sell some of the vegetables and rice we
grow, but who will buy them now?" the 58-year-old grandmother asks.
"We're scared, but we eat them anyway."
Tiangco told IPS that she and her husband have sent their
grandchildren away to live with relatives to escape what they
believe is a poisoned environment. "We want to move, but where can
we go?" she asked.
Philippine Recyclers Incorporated (PRI) is among the local firms
that, like many other Asian companies, import used car batteries
from developed countries, recovers lead from them and molds them
into the plates used in new batteries.
The environmental group Greenpeace says lack of safeguards, open
dumping of hazardous waste and harmful emissions by PRI is
poisoning nearby communities, citing the elevated lead levels
detected in a study it released here last week.
"This is a virtual toxic time bomb," said Greenpeace campaigner
on toxic waste issues for Southeast Asia Von Hernandez, adding that
the levels exceed European standards.
The charge is vehemently denied by PRI officials who say their
company spares no expense to protect the surrounding environment
and the health of staff and residents.
However, residents report a drastic fall in harvests,
foul-smelling emissions during smelter operations, yellow sulphuric
dust that coats vegetation, respiratory ailments among children,
nausea, constant sore throats and burning sensations in the eyes.
Children, who are much more vulnerable to lead poisoning, swim
in pools of water formed at quarry sites outside the PRI and
dumping sites. With bare hands, they help collect battery cases
from where some residents extract and melt remaining lead to be
sold back the factory at 10 pesos (about 38 cents) a kilo.
Environmental Secretary Victor Ramos says he is aware of the
"lack of diligence on the part of (battery) importers," adding that
the government wants to stop the local processing of lead acid
batteries from overseas.
Greenpeace says the PRI case is just one example of how the
toxic waste trade flourishes in the developing world, at a time
when lead smeltering is becoming too environmentally risky and
costly for industrialized countries to do at home.
"They are turning to countries where the labor is cheap and
where there is a poor enforcement of environmental laws," Hernandez
pointed out.
"This is almost similar to the export of lead poisoning to
developing countries, and the Philippines has emerged as one of the
favorite global destinations for used lead acid batteries."
Philippine law bans the entry of hazardous wastes but allows the
processing of waste for "economic usage," which is to suggest that
it is not for final dumping.
The environmental department regularly issues importation
permits to PRI, a subsidiary of the U.S. firm Ramcar Batteries
Incorporated, which processes more than 4,000 tons of scrap
batteries a month, some 3,000 tons of which are imported. PRI is
the only firm allowed to import used batteries.
As lead smelters in North America and Europe close, waste
brokers are finding Asian firms willing to take in scrap batteries
in the guise of "recycling."
The Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous
Waste, which the Philippines signed, aims to plug the "recycling"
loophole through which more than 90 percent of exported waste
flows.
When it takes effect in 1998, the convention would ban all waste
shipments from industrialized states to developing nations,
including the waste trade in lead batteries.
But activists want the Philippines to follow the spirit of the
Basel ban now due to the environmental and health risks posed by
lead smelters. But the Philippines' imports of scrap lead acid
batteries have risen sharply in the last few years.
The country imported 24,796 tons of lead acid batteries in 1995,
more than twice the 1994 volume of 12,463 tons. Imports reached
5,241 tons in the first four months of 1996. Since 1991, the
country has imported at least 76,256 tons of drained and undrained
lead acid batteries.
Common sources of scrap batteries are Australia, Canada, Japan,
Britain, Germany and the United States. In the last three years,
the top three exporters of used car batteries to the Philippines
have been Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Australia, but shipments also
come from Taiwan, Nigeria and Chile.
Though PRI takes the most imported batteries, at least five
other recycling plants, apart from backyard operations, end up
processing imported lead waste from PRI, Greenpeace said.
After Greenpeace disclosed its findings, Ramos said: "We do not
allow the Philippines to become the dumping ground for toxic waste.
We are very careful about this." But he has seen pictures of PRI's
dumping ground for battery casings that still have lead, and agrees
that this is "very dangerous" especially for children.
"Our policy now is not to support the industry's position to
allow the importation of used batteries" as an allowable item when
the Basel Convention takes effect, Ramos said. "We will encourage
them to recycle the old batteries available domestically, but not
to import them anymore."
PRI president Jacob Tagorda says Greenpeace's findings are
"false." PRI says it has spent more than 50 million pesos (more
than $1.9 million) on anti-pollution devices and requires workers
to wear U.S.-made protective gear against lead exposure. "We are
responsible recyclers," he said.
Complaints have also prompted PRI to begin conducting health
exams for residents every week and to foot medical bills. But
residents say this is not enough.
Twelve Patubig residents who went to the University of the
Philippines for tests found lead levels in their blood. The levels
ranged from 14 to 30 micrograms per deci-liter. Filipino
toxicologist Kenneth Go says lead levels of 10 micrograms or more
can cause neuropsychiatric symptoms and is linked to anaemia, nerve
damage and male infertility.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control says blood lead levels of
10 micrograms per deci-liter are linked to decreased intelligence
especially in children.
Samples collected by Greenpeace in August showed PRI's effluent
water to have lead levels of 190 parts per million (ppm), way above
New York's standard of 0.05 ppm. Soil samples taken near the PRI
plant yielded lead levels of 26,000 ppm, or far above Europe's
typical lead levels of 140 ppm near smelters.
Present occupational safety standards used by the government for
lead poisoning are too high at 50 micrograms per deci-liter, Go
added. Connie Aquino, who lives near PRI, said its emissions were
so lethal that they were causing holes in aluminum roofs, "So what
is in our lungs?" Connie declared.
A 1993 Greenpeace study on the lead battery waste trade found
damage to human health and the environment in communities near lead
smelters, from Latin America to Asian countries like Indonesia,
Taiwan and Thailand.
"We want our air and harvests back," said Jose Bartolome,
spokesman for Patubig folk. But they have to live with the
foul-smelling emissions from the PRI smelter. They cannot really
describe the smell, but have a name for it: "The devil's fart."