At Ford Motor Co. headquarters near Detroit, Phillip Toyne, a shy Australian lawyer, warned executives in 2005 that the lead inside car batteries was poisoning people.
Lead is an essential, but toxic, element of car batteries. As demand rose, the auto industry increased its use of recycled lead. But many recycling factories around the world were pumping toxic smoke into communities.
Toyne, records show, pitched a solution: a program in which inspectors would certify factories that operated cleanly. Car manufacturers and battery makers could then market themselves as buying only from environmentally friendly suppliers.
It went nowhere.
An investigation by The New York Times and The Examination showed that African factories have poisoned people while recycling lead to be sold to U.S. companies. Children near one cluster of factories outside Lagos, Nigeria, had lead in their blood at levels that could cause lifelong brain damage, according to testing commissioned as part of the investigation.