Green Options

Despite US restrictions on lead levels in paint, including a tougher law that debuted this month, lead poisoning due to consumer paint is still an issue. Why? Much of our paint comes from other countries.

615 children have been poisoned by lead in the Chinese province of Shaanxi prompting angry parents to “rampage” the factory responsible.

The children have “dangerously high amounts of lead in their blood”, according to the Guardian.  Angry parents stormed the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company tearing down fences and destroying coal trucks in response to the news.

A class action lawsuit seeking $200 million was filed against the Washington D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) by the single father of twin boys who were poisoned as infants by lead contaminated tap water. John Parkhurst filed the suit on behalf of himself and other parents in D.C. whose children were poisoned due to extremely high levels of lead in the municipal water supply from 2001 to 2004.

“In June 2001, WASA discovered that that toxic levels of lead were leaching into the District’s drinking water. Not only did the Authority fail to eliminate this danger, it actually took affirmative steps to hide the lead contamination from its customers and federal authorities. At the same time, WASA encouraged the public to consume this dangerous product. As a result, tens of thousands of children and pregnant mothers faced elevated risks for years longer than they should have. WASA’s actions endangered thousands of children living in the District between 2001 and 2004, many of whom, like Jonathan and Joshua Parkhurst, are now profoundly affected by their ingestion of this highly poisonous element.” - Stefanie Roemer, Sanford Wittels & Heisler.

So many hard-working and innovative people have stepped in with projects to help rebuild New Orleans in the wake of the devastating 2005 levee failures, but the Fundred Dollar Bill Project is beyond unique.

The project’s goal is to encourage schoolchildren across the U.S. to create their own version of a $100 bill dubbed a “Fundred Dollar Bill” (a blend of “fun,” “fund” and “hundred”) … for a total of 3 million Fundreds in all. Once completed, those 3 million Fundreds will be collected for delivery to Washington, D.C., in a biofuel-powered armored truck in hopes of receiving in return $300 million in real currency to protect New Orleans residents — kids especially — from the toxic levels of lead found in the city’s soil.