Recycling Gone Wrong

Unsafe recycling of lead-based car batteries may be the biggest global scandal you've never heard of. 

It’s profitable but especially dangerous for children working in unsafe, unregulated smelting operations across the globe.

There is no safe level of lead exposure—even low levels can damage kids’ intellectual development. In Senegal, 18 children perished in 3 months from encephalopathy—their brains damaged by toxic lead pollution from a battery recycling plant outside Dakar.
 
While the problem is well-documented, action is thin.

One proposal: establishing a global fund to offer economic incentives to undercut dangerous informal operations.
 
Yale Environment 360