From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

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 worker 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? I knew zero about recycled batteries. And that's, that's rounding up. Okay. So I got a call

for my guy at the examination, which is this relatively new, independent, investigative

newsroom that specializes in global public health.

And they have this really terrific reporter, a guy I'd never met, though I'd heard about him,

Will Fitzgibbon.

He had done a fair bit of work already in

Africa. He was a lead expert. He dug into the lead recycling industry. And this is the industry

that supplies a lot of the car batteries that we find under the hoods of cars in the U.S. We're talking

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