Monitoring Lead Concentration in the Surrounding Environmental Components of a Lead Battery Company: Plants, Air and Effluents—Case Study, Kenya

Jeremiah Otieno, Przemysław Kowal and Jacek Mąkinia
Additional contact information
Jeremiah Otieno: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland
Przemysław Kowal: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland
Jacek Mąkinia: Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdansk University of Technology, Narutowicza 11/12, 80-233 Gdansk, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-10

Abstract: Lead (Pb) pollution from smelters and lead–acid battery has become a serious problem worldwide owing to its toxic nature as a heavy metal. Stricter regulations and monitoring strategies have been formulated, legislated and implemented in various parts of the world on heavy metal usage. Developed countries such as the USA and in Europe largely operate within the set standards, however, developing countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and India, with limited regulatory capacity, resources and sufficient data, face poor Pb waste management and exposure of the population to health risks. This study assessed the pollution concerns from Associated Battery Manufacturers (East Africa) Limited (ABM), located in the Nairobi Industrial Area in Kenya. Samples of air, extracts from plants (leaves) and factory wastewaters were taken from different operations units, prepared and analysed with Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). Pb traces remained fairly controlled with averages of 1.24 ± 0.42 parts per million (ppm), 1.21 ± 0.02 ppm and 0.29 ± 0.01 ppm in the air, plant extracts and effluents, respectively. The conducted research shows that the obtained lead concentrations in the air, wastewater and surrounding plants exceeded the recommended standards, and are potentially harmful not only to workers, but also to the surrounding villages.

Keywords: developing countries; lead pollution; lead–acid battery; heavy metals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5195/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5195/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:9:p:5195-:d:801470

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().