Blood lead levels (BLL) in children from urban and industrial areas of Indonesia and mitigation measures

Abstract

Lead (Pb), a heavy metal, has characteristics that make it simple to recycle. Due to its ease of recycling and continued economic value, this metal is highly sought-after in its scrap form. Because they contain leads that can still be used, used batteries are one of the waste materials that are still sought after. Illegal recycling puts people at risk of lead pollution exposure, which is bad for everyone's health but especially for growing children. The purpose of this study is to gather data and details regarding blood lead levels (BLL) in kids across several Indonesian cities. A total of 167 elementary school-aged children from Tangerang Regency, Medan City, and Surabaya City participated in the research study in 2016. A Lead Care Portable Analyzer (ESA Laboratories, Chelmsford, MA, USA) was used to measure BLL. The average BLL of all the participants whose blood samples were tested was 12.45 µg/dL, with Tangerang Regency having the highest average BLL at 30.67 g/dL. It was 3.55 µg/dL for respondents from Surabaya City and 4.38 µg/dL for respondents from Medan City, respectively. The average value is significantly higher than the WHO's BLL cutoff of 3.5 µg/dL. A high BLL indicates that there is still lead contamination. To lessen the negative effects of lead pollution in both the air and the water, remediation must be mitigated by using vacant land and planting trees. Regular lead data monitoring is done to identify pollution at an early stage.