Your Car Battery's Lead Came From Nigeria.

Of 70 people who volunteered to be tested near Lagos, including mothers, children and factory workers, seven in 10 had lead poisoning, with soil and dust samples up to 186 times as high as what experts say is safe. Nigeria is among the fastest-growing sources of recycled lead for American companies, with Ogijo home to at least seven lead recyclers. Among the largest is True Metals, which has supplied lead to factories making batteries for Ford, General Motors, Tesla and other automakers.

Nigeria is the fastest growing source of recycled lead exported to the US, though it remains a small but growing component of the supply chain. Large battery manufacturers in the US and North America would prefer to get spent batteries domestically, as it's actually cheaper given the scale and existing plants, but companies increasingly source from overseas.

For US companies, the issue extends beyond immediate reputational risk. The supply chain is opaque and diffuse, meaning car companies and battery makers are unlikely to know the precise origins of the lead they use, relying instead on international trading companies like Trafigura. Companies have rejected proposals to use only lead that is certified as safely produced, with automakers excluding lead from their environmental policies and battery makers relying on assurances from trading companies. The industry built a global supply system in which everyone involved can say someone else is responsible for oversight.

The knowledge isn't new. Records and interviews show that automakers and their suppliers have known for almost three decades that recyclers were releasing lead into the air while melting down old batteries, yet time and again opted not to act and blocked efforts to address the problem. One retired Ford executive recalled that addressing lead pollution proved financially challenging, with several ideas requiring completely new supply chains. Industry executives noted active resistance from the motor vehicle industry to a "green lead" certification initiative because it would call attention to their reliance on a toxic metal.

For non-US companies, the pattern mirrors broader supply chain opacity issues. Japan has imported recycled lead from Nigeria in the past decade, with trade records showing lead from polluting factories seeping further into the global supply chain. Because lead from various sources is meshed together during manufacturing, it's impossible for consumers to know exactly where the lead in their car batteries came from.

The Nigerian government briefly shut several smelters in September after researchers reported high blood-lead levels, but operations resumed within days. One factory, Green Recycling, tried operating with proper pollution controls and modern equipment but found itself at a competitive disadvantage, unable to outbid competitors with crude operations for dead batteries.

The broader issue transcends Nigeria. Companies built supply chains optimized for cost, not traceability. When regulatory pressure increases domestically, production shifts to jurisdictions with weaker enforcement. The resulting system allows every participant to claim plausible deniability while communities absorb the health costs. Lead poisoning worldwide is estimated to cause far more deaths each year than malaria and HIV/AIDS combined. Supply chains that externalize these costs onto vulnerable populations remain profitable until forced to change.

In a world of black swans and cascading disruptions, this is what resilience in action looks like.