Rachel Abrams

In the contentious fight over how to address climate change in the United States, recycled lead is a feel-good story.

It can be processed with techniques that keep workers safe and reused in batteries that power millions of vehicles around the world.

But a New Times investigation reveals how this environmental initiative comes at a major human cost.

Today, Peter Goodman explains the dirty business of a supposedly clean technology.

It's Tuesday, December 2nd.

Peter, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

You are one of our foremost experts on the global economy, and you just came out with this really eye-opening investigation on recycled batteries and lead poisoning, which I will bet is not something that most people know a lot about.

So I'm very curious to know two things.

One, how did you even get on this investigation?

And number two, how much did you, Peter...

know about recycled batteries when you first started?

That connection sounds incredibly challenging to make.

Where did you actually start the reporting journey?

So where exactly did you go and what did you see there?

So what you're seeing in this town is all these signs of pollution that is coming from this lead battery recycling process.

Before we get any further in the story, I just want to have you explain how and why a battery gets recycled the correct way and then what you saw in Nigeria and how that was different.

Just hammering at them.

And this is what would have been done by machines in the United States in a tightly controlled environment.

This sounds incredibly dangerous.