WHO push for total lead ban to hit Kenya's paint makers

What you need to know:

  • Compound affects intellectual growth of over 600,000 children
  • The Kenyan paint market has dangerously high lead concentrations of above 10,000 ppm
  • Kenya has only started a policy process on the compulsory standards to stop the production, import, export, use and sale of lead-containing paints.

Kenya’s paint industry faces yet another regulatory hurdle as environmentalists push on with campaigns for total lead ban.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already given member states two years, up to 2020, to effect total ban on lead paint in the market.

Lead compounds, though poisonous, are normally added in paints to give them specific colours, reduce time they take to dry and to makes them more durable and moisture resistant.

The WHO says lead is responsible for an estimated 600,000 new cases of intellectual disability among children every year.

“There is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe,” the global health watchdog says. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) resolution in 2015 agreed that African countries should adopt a limit for lead in all paints at 90 parts per million (ppm) but WHO now says the most effective way to deal with lead in paint is through regulation and an outright ban.

Compulsory standards

Kenya has only started a policy process on the compulsory standards to stop the production, import, export, use and sale of lead-containing paints.

Last year the East African Community (EAC) adopted a 90 parts per million lead limit, which is meant to be legally binding for Kenya.

The Kenyan paint market has dangerously high lead concentrations of above 10,000 ppm and Crown Paints CEO Rakesh Rao said that greater support and enforcement is needed, particularly to clean up the informal industry.