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"Despite a lot of industry talk about "sustainable
development" and "product stewardship", lead poisoning and lead
contamination will only be prevented when corporations and governments take action to
manage this persistent accumulative toxic substance from the moment it is mined until
forever" says UN Award-winning environmentalist Elizabeth O’Brien. The US
state of Maine last month introduced a dedicated tax (hypothecation) which takes 25 cents
from the sale of every gallon of new (unleaded) paint for community education to prevent
childhood lead poisoning [see www.seacoastonline.com/news/06262005/maine/49553.htm
]. In Australia, the federal government
has decided to create a National Environment Protection Measure (NEPM) on Product
Stewardship that could include hypothecation. However, The LEAD Group is concerned that
other NEPMs have taken years to develop and have incredibly lax timeframes for compliance.
‘Taxing lead from the moment that it is mined in order to put together a fund
for lead management, education, information and clean-up of contamination from lead should
be an essential part of any Product Stewardship measure’ says O’Brien. In
her submission [see www.lead.org.au/submission_to_nsw_dipnr.html]
last week on a proposed lead acid
battery recycling plant in Wagga, NSW, O’Brien highlighted the estimated 1.1 million
tonnes of lead in the form of lead acid batteries that are not recycled each year
globally – almost one quarter of all batteries made per annum. The state of lead acid
battery recycling in Australia is not much better. There are an estimated 20,000 tonnes
per year of lead acid batteries not being recycled and perhaps 3,000 tonnes being
illegally shipped to Asia for black market recycling.
The LEAD Group wants all the non-essential uses of lead in products banned. The federal
government signed the OECD Declaration on Lead in 1996 [see www.lead.org.au/lanv7n4/L74-23.html
], and so O’Brien states that there
is ‘no excuse to be still allowing the sale of leaded fishing sinkers, leaded
industrial paints and leaded petrol in motor racing’. The LEAD Group is working
with NICNAS (National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme) to ban lead
in industrial paints in Australia and with the United Nations to ban leaded petrol
globally see www.unep.org/pcfv
"It wouldn’t take away too much profit from
the lead industry or detract too much from the government royalties from lead mining if
there is a dedicated fund from a product stewardship tax, to support community lead
management information services such as the Global Lead Advice and Support Service which
has answered now 45,000 enquiries on lead management from 60 countries."
Contact: Elizabeth O’Brien ph (02) 9716 0014. ###
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