Peter S. Goodman

So it seems pretty clear that whatever...

was said in the room with the heads of these smelters, there is no enforceable document that compels these companies to do anything differently anytime soon.

And when I was back on the ground talking to workers at these smelters, what they said is, oh, yeah, now they're giving us safety goggles.

They didn't used to do that.

Oh, they used to give us gloves once a week.

Now they're giving them to us twice a week.

I mean, what has to happen at these plants is they have to put in serious emission controls.

And it's going to cost millions of dollars.

If they put in battery-breaking equipment, that's going to cost millions of dollars.

This is not something that's going to be fixed with a bunch of gloves and goggles.

I think there are serious reasons to doubt that that positive outcome will happen for the simple reason that the incentives that created this situation that we've been reporting on have not changed.

And those incentives are...

You have large brands like East Penn that actually make lots of batteries under other brands.

So it's not as if a consumer can go off to the battery store and say, don't give me one of those East Penn batteries.

There are lots of others that they make for other brands.

We also know that Nigeria is hardly alone as being a country where there are large numbers of people who are desperate enough to

just to figure out how to get dinner on the table tonight, that they will accept horrific pollution.

I mean, not that the people in the communities want the pollution.

They're horrified by the pollution.

But in terms of the situation for the policymakers, for the environmental regulators,