54 Subsidiaries Of US, EU, Japanese Companies Busy Making High-Lead Paint For Developing Countries

[hatrack]

EDIT

There’s no debate about the pernicious effects of lead: Ingesting it, and inhaling its fumes and dust, can cause irreversible brain and nerve damage. No level of exposure is considered safe, which is why lead paint has been banned for most uses in the U.S. and Europe for decades. Shockingly, however, U.S. and European Union companies continue to manufacture lead paint in developing countries, where few governments regulate the stuff.

If the situation doesn’t change, the developing world will soon have its own toxic legacy to rival that of the West -- of lead-coated houses that require expensive remediation, of whole generations set back by lead poisoning. Tests in about 25 low- and middle-income countries in recent years have found that the majority of the decorative oil-based paints for sale in local markets contained dangerous amounts of lead. In one 2008-2009 study, the average lead concentration of such paint purchased in 11 countries was 23,707 parts per million. The legal limit for residential use in the U.S. is 90 ppm.

When paint contains lead above 90 ppm, it’s an indication the metal was added intentionally -- as a pigment, drying agent or corrosion retardant. Safe alternatives exist for each of these functions. Some of the optional pigments are more expensive than lead, but coloring is such a small fraction of the total cost of paint that cans with and without lead sell for the same price. Thus, manufacturers have no good justification for selling the former.

Yet the study identified 54 companies that made the paints with excessive lead concentrations, six of which were subsidiaries of U.S. companies and eight of which were subsidiaries of European or Japanese companies. What’s more, U.S. entities exported at least 11,000 tons of the pigments necessary to make lead paint in 2012, a trade worth $27 million.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-02/lead-paint-s-tragic-comeback.html

[Scuba]

1. And Scott Walker wants it sold here in Wisconsin.

It was his favorite food as a child.

[phantom power]

2. when corporation-people demand to regulate themselves...

it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. And Canada is selling the unsafe byproducts from out Tar Sands disgrace

.
.
.

To outfits we know are reselling this toxic waste to be burnt as fuel in other countries.

It is illegal to burn this stuff here because of the health and environmental harm.

BUT - corporations gotta make their money, right?

So we export death;

I ain't proud to be a Canadian no more.

(sigh)

CC

[mopinko]

4. Naming and shaming companies peddling lead paint is also a valuable tactic.

so says the article, but strangely bloomberg does not name a single company. things that make you go hmmm.
not

[CRH]

5. Yeah I looked for the countries affected,...

the name of the study and the parent companies or subsidiaries, and couldn't find a trail to follow. An article with no provable sources.

[cprise]

6. Asian Paints, Berger, Nerolac, Jenson and Nicholson and ICI

Those were the brands they included in their executive summary.

The countries are "Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Belarus, Mexico, Brazil and India".

http://toxicslink.org/docs/Double_Standard_Lead_Paint_29_June_2011.pdf

...from http://www.toxicslink.org/?q=content/publication-5


EDIT: Here is a better article summarizing the above:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829190.200-the-wests-toxic-hypocrisy-over-lead-paint.html?full=true#.UhPrRvPD8uU

When we showed up at the factory gate of one of the worst offenders, Seigneurie, I was shocked to discover that it was owned by US-based PPG, the world's second largest paint company. When we politely asked PPG to do the right thing, it ignored us. Only after the story appeared in its hometown newspaper in Pittsburgh did the company agree to reformulate all of its decorative paints globally. PPG has yet to agree to take the lead out of its industrial coatings.

PPG is not alone. According to trade figures from 2011, US firms export over 7000 tonnes of lead pigments a year and European Union companies 21,000 tonnes, 4000 tonnes of which come from the UK. German giant BASF only agreed to phase out lead pigments when the EU announced restrictions which come into force at the end of next year.

[mopinko]

7. now i feel dirty. i just used 10 gallons of their paint.

well, i wouldn't use it again, anyway, but ick.
add to the boycott aps.