The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is collaborating with various ministries to formulate a comprehensive Lead Prevention Policy in a concerted endeavor to address lead exposure.
Simultaneously, the agency is intensifying its educational efforts to enhance public awareness regarding the hazards associated with lead.
The Executive Director of the EPA, Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu, made these announcements during a press conference held in Accra.
“The EPA will then move ahead and recommend that a high-level multi-sector ministerial sector committee comprising of the Ministry of Science, Ministry of Heath, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development may consider the establishment with the support of Pure Earth and UNICEF to develop a lead prevention and reduction policy for Ghana,” he said.
The need for action has arisen following a recent extensive study encompassing nearly 200 consumer products and food samples across four regions in Ghana.
The study’s findings raised significant concerns regarding elevated levels of lead contamination in the widely used metal cookware known as ‘dades3n.’
This comprehensive research, known as the Global Rapid Market screening study, represents the largest of its kind and underscores the distressing presence of lead in consumer goods and food originating from low and middle-income countries, including Ghana. The implications of this issue extend globally.
Conducted by the environmental NGO Pure Earth’s Blacksmith Initiative, the study unveiled distressing levels of lead contamination in various categories: Metal cookware (Dades3n) exhibited 55% contamination, ceramic cookware recorded 18%, children’s toys contained 14% lead, and locally-produced mascara contained 7% lead.
A recent report released by the World Bank also emphasized the exceptionally high levels of lead exposure, which have been linked to a decline in IQ.
“Children under 5 years old worldwide lost 765 million IQ points, those living in low and middle-income countries lost 729 million IQ points.”
“There is an average loss of 5.9 IQ points per child and this IQ points loss is 80% greater than the previous estimate,” the report stated.
Esmond Wisdom Quansah, the Country Director for Pure Earth, emphasized that consuming food prepared in these metallic cookwares significantly elevates the risk of lead poisoning for individuals.
He further explained that the experiment was rigorously conducted on six separate occasions, consistently yielding the same results. Consequently, the institution is striving to raise public awareness to encourage the exploration of alternative options in order to prevent further harm.
“What this points to is that we are not safe, if you happen to be eating from any of these metallic or ‘dades3n’ cookware we are at risk of lead poisoning.”
“We’ve grown a step further, our scientists have conducted what we call the leach test to determine the percentage of leach of this lead concentration in this metallic or aluminium cooking pot into the food and we were surprised by the findings of the scientists.”
“52% of the pots tested leached lead in concentrations greater than our reference level of 10 ug/L. The repeated leaching “boils” in pots in general resulted in lower lead in leachate, although lead remained above the 10 ug/L reference level in most cases, so that is a cause for concern for everyone and that is why we are putting this information in the public,” he explained.