Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is one of 35 million children -- around 60 percent of all children in the South Asian nation -- with dangerously high levels of lead, leaving him with the diminutive stature of someone several years younger. The causes are varied, but his mother blames his condition on a now-shuttered factory that hastily scrapped and recycled old car batteries for profit, poisoning the air and soil of their small village in the process. As informal battery recycling thrives in Bangladesh, millions of people remain unaware of the risks of lead exposure.
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00:00I have been living here for a year and a half.
00:05I was in the third grade.
00:07I didn't listen to anyone after that.
00:11I didn't go to school.
00:13I didn't do anything.
00:15I just worked all the time.
00:17My children are not well.
00:27They are not happy.
00:29I don't know what to do.
00:31I want my children to get better.
00:33I want them to get better soon.
00:35I want them to get well soon.
00:37I want them to get well soon.
00:39I am worried about my children.
00:41I don't want them to be like me.
00:43I want them to get well soon.
00:45I don't want them to be like me.
00:47I don't want them to be like me.
01:15Bangladesh is the fourth most lead-impacted country.
01:26About 36 million children,
01:29which is about 60% of the children of our country,
01:33are poisoned by lead.
01:35There is no accountability of that sector
01:38to use high-quality batteries.
01:40They are using low-quality 8 to 10 months longevity batteries.
01:43They are recycling it frequently
01:45and causing more lead pollution.
01:4880% of these factories are running informally.
01:54This is the major reason of lead pollution in our country.
02:14This battery factory has made lands of our farmlands hard.
02:23The soil is black.
02:27Now there is no place to grow our crops.
02:32The land has become very hard and the soil has become very black.
02:37Now there is no way to grow crops there.
02:41And our water has turned red.
02:46Some places it has turned red, some places it has turned black.
02:50I mean, there is no way to use it.
02:52And the crops that used to grow in our area,
02:55like flowers, fruits, jackfruits, pomegranates,
02:59and other crops,
03:01are no longer available.
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