Environmentalist group Ecowaste Coalition on Saturday urged school officials and teachers to stay vigilant on lead-containing decorative paints that are illegal to use in schools and hazardous to children.
The group made the appeal in time for this week’s Brigada Eskwela program, an annual school maintenance activity to help ensure that public elementary and high schools nationwide will be ready in time for the school opening.
Under the program, teachers, parents, pupils, civic groups, volunteers and even police and military personnel members picked up brooms, paint brushes, washed walls and started cleaning the surroundings and classrooms in public schools nationwide.
“We call upon all school heads and teachers to exercise the utmost vigilance to ensure that banned leaded paints are not used to decorate classroom walls, windows, doors, desks, and tables, and other school amenities during the Brigada Eskwela,” appealed Thony Dizon, Ecowaste Chemical Safety Campaigner.
Ecowaste said that lead-containing decorative paints that are typically used for homes, schools, daycare centers, and playgrounds, as well as for toys and other children’s products, have been phased out effective Dec. 31, 2016 in line with DENR’s Chemical Control Order for Lead and Lead Compounds.
“It is likely that old stocks of lead-containing paints are still available in hardware stores and unknowingly sold to uninformed buyers. Paint consumers have the right to be protected against hazards to health and should insist on lead-safe paints at all times,” Dizon warned.
The group reiterated the need for Brigada Eskwela participants to abide by Department Order No. 4, series of 2017, which requires the “mandatory use of lead-safe paints in schools.”
“It is our shared responsibility to keep leaded paints out of the school environment to thwart a globally recognized source of childhood lead exposure,” he emphasized.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones reinforced her earlier directive by issuing Department Order 64 in December 2017, which affirms the use of “independently certified lead-safe paints” as part of the minimum performance standards and specifications for DepEd school buildings.
While lead exposure can adversely affect almost every organ and system, lead exerts toxic effects on the brain and the central nervous system and is most harmful to young children.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “lead can affect children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient, behavioral changes such as reduced attention span and increased anti-social behavior, and reduced educational attainment.”
“There is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe,” according to WHO, which considers lead among the “ten chemicals of major public health concern.”