Society

Tinfoil industry creates lead poisoning in E China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-14 15:10

HANGZHOU - Yang Xingshu has been suffering from frequent headaches for years, but only after getting a blood test did he realize that they are likely caused by a high level of lead in his blood.

Working in a tinfoil processing workshop in the township of Yangxunqiao in Zhejiang province, the 42-year-old migrant worker has spent more than ten years toiling here.

"In the last few years, I've felt weak and got sick easily," he explained in a Sichuan dialect.

Preliminary medical tests showed that Yang is suffering from severe lead poisoning with 764 gammas of lead per liter of blood.

According to the national diagnosis standard, a normal level should be below 100 gammas per liter.

Blood lead levels above 700 per liter is serious lead poisoning. Excessive amounts of lead in the body harms the nervous and reproductive systems and can cause high blood pressure and anemia. In severe cases, it can lead to convulsions, coma and even death.

But Yang is not the sole victim. More than 600 people, including 103 children, from 25 family-run tinfoil processing workshops in Yangxunqiao have been sickened in the latest case of mass lead poisoning, according to local health authorities.

Among the children, Ran Boyi is just one and a half years old. He appears thinner and more sluggish than his peers. His blood lead level is as high as 553 gammas per liter.

Fortune or misfortune?

As a tinfoil processing worker from the city of Yibin in southwestern Sichuan province, Yang moved to the small town to seek fortune in his twenties when told that the tinfoil processing industry in Shaoxing county was lucrative.

"I have really made some money from this work," Yang said. "I could earn more than 3,000 yuan ($462.6) monthly on average; sometimes, I could even get about 5,000 yuan."

Several years ago, tinfoil processing workshops in Shaoxing started to bring in new technology that cut the processing time while consuming less tin to save costs, according to Zhao Jianxing, a local official in Yangxunqiao.

"Owners of the tinfoil processing workshops were eager to pursue the low-cost tinfoil at the expense of their health by using lead, which is a cheaper but poisonous metal," said Huang Miaofeng, owner of a tinfoil processing workshop in Zhitanghu village of Yangxunqiao.

Lack of knowledge of poisoning prevention, the owners, workers, as well as their families, are constantly exposed to lead in family-run workshops in Shaoxing.

"All the workers in my workshop are family members," Huang said. "Last year, we adopted the new technology of using more lead to reduce the cost of raw materials, but I never expected it would bring such misfortune."

More than 2,500 people from around 290 workshops in the five villages in the township of Yangxunqiao are engaged in the tinfoil processing industry. Most are migrant workers from Sichuan and Guizhou provinces.

Chen Shuirong, the village chief of Zhitanghu village, said this is a man-made problem that can be avoided.

He explained that his grandfather was a tinfoil processing worker, and although he's in his eighties, he remains in good health.

"If they used the traditional processing technology as my grandfather did, they wouldn't get lead poisoning," Chen said.

He believes profit-driven owners raise the amount of lead in the raw materials so that they can produce plenty of tinfoil at a low cost.

The industry needs standardization

Shaoxing has a long history of producing tinfoil that goes back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), according to the Shaoxing Daily. Tinfoil is used to make sacrificial offerings, such as tinfoil ingots that are burned to show respect to Buddha or ancestors, and tinfoil production is now listed as a local intangible cultural heritage.

Tintoil made in Shaoxing is mainly exported to southeast Asian countries.

This flourishing industry has never been considered health-threatening, until now, as 74 people have been hospitalized, including 72 children.

The local government has a plan for the treatment of the victims and has also decided to allocate money to those children suffering from severe lead poisoning.

Twenty-five workshops have suspended operations, according to the township government.

"Although this industry lacks regulations, we couldn't shut down all the workshops in Shaoxing because most people engaged in it are migrant workers, and the banning of tinfoil production may lead to unemployment that in turn may destabilize the community," according to local publicity official Sun Jun.

Lying in his hospital bed, Yang said he didn't want to see his workshop closed despite the suffering it brought him because he doesn't want to lose his job.

"I hope the government can enhance awareness about the harm of lead through education, so people won't hurt themselves out of ignorance," he said.

Yang also hopes the government can regulate the industry in order to protect workers like him.

Sun agreed that the industry needs regulation and standardization.