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In 2024, Pure Earth advanced efforts to elevate awareness of lead poisoning and drive government response through our Global Lead Program. The program measures progress across five key outcomes and related indicators. This blog series will highlight our 2024 results and achievements, beginning with Outcome 1: Increased National Recognition and Prioritization of Lead Exposure Through Advocacy and Awareness-Raising.
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Outside Rina’s home in Bangladesh, there was once a blossoming garden of mango, lychee, plum, and guava trees. Then, her landlord opened a lead-acid battery breaking factory next door, contaminating the soil with toxic lead.
“The leaves of the trees turned yellow and started to fall gradually, then, at a later point, all the trees died,” she said. “The trees died because of the lead … We had no knowledge that we or our children would be harmed, or that the cattle and plants would die.”
Pollution from illegal lead-acid battery recycling factories killed Rina’s trees, but with the help of Pure Earth Bangladesh and Khulna University’s Environmental Science team, the toxic soil was cleaned up so new trees could be replanted.
Lead poisoning poses a serious health risk, not only for trees, but for 800 million children who are poisoned by lead and 1.6 to 5.5 million people who die from it every year. A lack of awareness about lead poisoning among governments, companies, and individuals like Rina exacerbates the lead issue. That’s why, through our Global Lead Program, Pure Earth is focused on bringing greater attention to the issue of pollution.
How Pure Earth is Raising the Alarm
Pure Earth works to increase the profile of lead exposure, elevating lead abatement as a priority action for governments, policymakers, multilaterals, and major funders.
At the same time, raising awareness helps to empower people like Rina with the knowledge they need to recognize and protect themselves from lead exposure. The video Rina’s Story: Transforming Lives by Cleaning Lead-Contaminated Community documents Pure Earth’s 2023 soil excavation project, which successfully decontaminated her neighborhood.
“It is good for us. Now we will be healthy and safe. It feels good now. The environment is getting better, everything is getting better,” says Rina, laughing and playing a board game.
In 2024, we had the opportunity to share Rina’s story, and many others’, in a series of 23 videos that foregrounded human impacts of lead pollution. At the launch of the Partnership for a Lead Free Future, Pure Earth’s video Transforming Battery Recycling: Protecting Future Generations was broadcasted to all attendees, including leaders from international governments, UN agencies, global development banks, and philanthropies. Across all our videos and social media posts on LinkedIn, X, BlueSky, Instagram, and Facebook, we reached 87,000 users, effectively spreading the word about the dangers of lead.
In addition to global social media campaigns, Pure Earth hosted 48 awareness-raising events, including seminars on the sources and health effects of lead exposure, workshops on lead mitigation strategies, and training sessions for environmental activists. In Ghana, Pure Earth organized an educational workshop with the University of Ghana. This event brought together 100 professors, university students, and members of the Ghana Institute of Geoscience to educate and empower young people to take an active role in combating lead pollution and poisoning.
Pure Earth Ghana with students from the University of Ghana, Department of Earth Science at an educational workshop in July 2024.
Our global events brought together more than 150 researchers, artists, students, and policymakers to tackle the lead issue across multiple sectors. For instance, several workshops in Bangladesh addressed lead contamination in the battery and electric mobility industries, which were responsible for contaminating Rina’s community. These workshops engaged 70+ stakeholders and yielded 8 actionable policy recommendations.
Pure Earth staff also published 9 research papers and participated in 3 key conferences: the Athens Institute’s 19th Annual Symposium on Environment, APECG 6th Scientific Symposium 2024, and the World Health Summit in Berlin, where Pure Earth President Drew McCartor presented the latest activities, learnings, and remaining gaps in global efforts to prevent lead exposure.
Pure Earth President Drew McCartor presented at the Global Action for a Lead-Free Future event with representatives from WHO, UNICEF, and USAID at the World Health Summit in October 2024.
Increased Awareness Leads to Government Action
Our awareness-raising efforts not only increased visibility, but also helped lead to significant signals of support: actions taken by national governments, key NGOs, and academic institutions that demonstrate their commitment to tackle lead exposure.
As a result of Pure Earth and UNICEF advocacy, the Bangladesh government launched the “Multisectoral Steering Committee” and organized a national workshop to respond to lead pollution. For the first time, their Bureau of Statistics will collect data on blood lead levels (BLL). BLL screening programs will identify communities like Rina’s that have been polluted by toxic lead, flagging them for decontamination efforts.
The Philippines also enacted the National Environmental Health Action Plan, which requires government agencies to integrate 10+ lead-related action points into their policies and programs. This milestone is thanks to advocacy by Pure Earth Philippines, led by Country Director Larah Ortega-Ibañez, who presented at several national conferences about lead exposure and the role of civil society in addressing it.
Pure Earth Philippines and USAID met with the Philippines’ National Poison Management and Control Center (NPMCC) to discuss solutions for childhood lead poisoning in the country in January 2024.
“Our advocacy work for proposed interventions using locally generated data, coming from our consistent representation through the years of lead work, backed by pilot demonstrations showing these can be done, and presented as a call for collaborative action where each sector can contribute to the pie of solutions, has resulted to signals of support from the national and local governments,” said Ortega-Ibañez.
We achieved similar signals of support—including commitments to collaborate and the establishment of lead-focused working groups—from governments in Ghana, Indonesia, and across Latin America.
The Global Lead Program Continues
Despite major breakthroughs and growing momentum, continued investment in the lead issue is necessary for ensuring long-term policy change and protecting vulnerable communities. Like Rina, everyone deserves the chance to feel healthy and safe in their own homes.
Learn more about Pure Earth’s 2024 Global Lead Program Results and Accomplishments:
