33 PPCJ • Month 2016www.coatingsgroup.com

LEAD REPORT

Concerned about safety? Kenya’s lead alliance is a big relief for the paint industry

Daniel Maina, CEO, Eco Ethics Kenya, organiser of a recent forum, held on October 29, as part of the 4th National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action, provides his review of the event.

‘Let there be light’, mythical but perhaps the greatest rationale for paint. Colour is the spark of divine in all that is alive, deep and happy. It has been my personal effort to see that the possession of colour not only fulfils the perceptions of health but the realities as well. Kenya is a critical hub for paint in the Sub-Saharan Africa and efforts to amend paint quality could see more than 150M beneficiaries. In a region where architectural paint is driven by the middle-class, chemical and structural superiority of paint, cost-effectiveness, possibilities for DIY and considerations for user and ecosystem safety, come to bear.

The 4th National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action was such a forum, where communities around the world, in our case Kenya, sought to interrogate the role paint could play in lowering lead exposure. Participants drawn from state agencies, government ministries, academia, industry and the civil society, converged at the Mombasa Technical Training Institute on October 29 to seek alternatives and allowable limits for lead in pigments and dryers. Indeed, levels as high as 15,000 parts per million (ppm) had been documented in Kenyan paint against WHO recommendations of 90ppm. Establishing a national standard using the 90ppm as a reference, provides a strong incentive for shifting technology and attitudes towards truly lead-free paints.

Lead in paint has the most devastating impacts on children under six years of age; studies cite its role in the death of 143,000 and learning disabilities in more than 600,000 children each year, globally. A lot more cases go unreported in developing countries due to lack of awareness and data. The impacts could be worse. Lead and other substances in paint, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), isocynates and other heavy metals, such as cobalt are a major cause of occupational asthma, kidney failure, lung damage and a spectra of neurological disorders. Poor practices in handling paint are responsible for falls from heights, fire accidents, spills, skin and eye irritation. To encapsulate these diverse concerns we chose to run our event under the theme ‘Exploring Paint Safety Beyond The Can’.

The week of action took advantage of social media, TV and radio, flyers, dances, speeches and word of mouth, to disseminate our message to more than 250,000 members of the public, particularly, paint manufacturers, artisans, home owners, estate developers, building contractors, public health and environmental agencies, and consumer safety groups. One of the key outcomes was the initiation of the Mombasa County into the lead alliance. This year’s event was organised by the University of Nairobi (UoN), Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI), Eco Ethics Kenya and the Mombasa Technical Training

Institute (MTTI). Our main sponsor was Crown Paint Kenya Limited.

PPCJ

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