Solving Pollution in the Philippines

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Pure Earth Philippines – Accomplishments from 2020 – 2023

Your continued support has helped us put in place a system that will help address and prevent childhood lead poisoning for generations to come. Here’s a brief timeline of what we have been able to achieve just within the last three years in the Philippines.

The Toxic Truth report released by Pure Earth and UNICEF in 2020 revealed that 1 in 3 children worldwide is lead poisoned.
To determine the number of Filipino children impacted, Pure Earth persuaded the government to include testing for lead in their National Nutrition Survey, which takes place every three years. This kick-started a national lead poisoning monitoring program, which will collect lead poisoning data every three years.
The first lead poisoning survey, which tested about 3000 children and pregnant women across 13 regions of the Philippines, confirmed that one million children ages 5-9 years have elevated blood lead levels.
Pure Earth connected families with lead poisoned children to doctors for health consultations.
To help pin-point the sources of lead exposure, Pure Earth sent investigators to 65 vendors in 7 markets across the Philippines to sample hundreds of consumer products for lead contamination. They found that 24% of aluminum pots, 13% of glazed ceramic food ware, and 16% of house paint were contaminated with high levels of lead.
Were these products responsible for poisoning children in their homes? To find out, Pure Earth investigators visited the homes of children identified with high blood lead levels to test products used in the home.
At every step of the way, work was done in partnership with local governments, with data openly shared.
As a result, our work is now attracting the attention of health officers from local government units interested in learning how they can do similar testing in their own localities.
For the first time, the government of the Philippines is including lead poisoning as a priority issue in their national environmental health action plan.
Pure Earth will continue expanding our work, and supporting local government.

Learn more about Protecting the Filipino Children’s Potential: The Lead Exposure Situation and Interventions in the Philippines.

Working to Solve Pollution in the Philippines Since 2008

Pure Earth has been identifying and tackling toxic pollutants in the Philippines through assessments of contaminated sites; pilot remediations, multi-stakeholder coordination, education, and industrial process reviews. To date, over 150 toxic sites have been assessed, and more than 25% were lead-contaminated. In addition to these assessments, Pure Earth has worked on the ground in priority areas, such as areas where Used Lead Acid Battery (ULAB) recycling is prevalent — developing plans and implementing cleanup projects.