Lead

Lead. It’s the most deadly thing in the name of “Led Zeppelin”, and the other thing is Zeppelin, which makes people think of the Hindenberg. And then the Titanic. And other massive disasters.

Pb. Lead. It’s is a heavy metal that poisons animals. We’ve seen it happen in communities across the world, from India, China, and even the United States of America. It’s happening right now in all of those places, and millions of people are being affected across thousands of water systems.

There are millions of kilometers of pipes across the world that leach lead, and millions of kilometers of layers of paint that degrade and create dust which hundreds of millions of people breathe in.

A child can be poisoned and seriously affected by 10mg of lead. A teaspoon contains around 4,000mg of lead. That means irreversible damage to the brain can be caused by a house painted with lead paint.

Housing New Zealand has said it is committed to providing safe and healthy homes to tenants. It says it “regularly” inspects interior and exterior of its properties, identifies properties with flaking paint and tests it for lead, provides information to contractors and staff, and communicates with tenants about lead paint removal processes and precautions.

If you know of any Housing New Zealand property with flaking paint, then please immediately call your member of parliament in order to have it tested and have your landlord or the government pay for it.

 

Update 12 January 2020:

I wrote an email on 22 February 2017 to the then Minister for Building and Construction, Nick Smith, asking what efforts Housing New Zealand is taking to reduce the amount of lead paint on its properties.

I received a response on 20 March 2017 from Rachel Kelly, Manager Government Relations, who stated Housing New Zealand agreed that lead poisoning is a serious health issue, and is committed to providing safe and healthy homes to tenants.

I thought I was getting fobbed off, and I was, but today I have found an article on Stuff.co.nz, from 31 March 2019. It states “While Housing NZ manager of government relations Rachel Kelly said she couldn’t state ‘with certainty’ exactly how many of its properties have paint containing lead, she estimated up to 52,383 of their 64,333 properties contained lead-based paint” and this: “In the 12 months to June 30, 2018, 1135 Housing NZ properties have had exterior paint work done to remove lead-based paint.”

Apparently, lead-based paint removal began just months after I sent my letter. It’s probably just a coincidence, but in a nation where people in authority do not listen to the opinion of others, I will take this is a small win in an ocean of being ignored.

Here’s the article:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/111473661/more-than-50000-housing-new-zealand-homes-still-contain-toxic-leadbased-paint