Johnson Controls Difficult to Control: Children's Blood Lead Exceeds the Standard Near the Factory

Johnson Controls is known for its stringent environmental protection standards.

It is now considered to be related to the excessive blood lead of nearby residents.

The resulting suspension of production,

Let this company that is rapidly expanding in China,

The pause button was pressed.

In Shanghai, the day of September 14 is full of drama for Johnson Controls. In the morning, the first press release issued “The company will invest $100 million to build a new plant” just reported that after a few hours, it was because of excessive blood lead among children near the lead-acid storage battery factory in Kangqiao Industrial Park, and the environmental protection and sanitation departments of Shanghai. Law enforcement officers rushed into the factory to investigate.

At the beginning of September, 25 schoolchildren in Shanghai Cambridge experienced excessive blood lead levels during their enrollment examinations. In the past, many cases of excessive blood lead levels in China were related to the presence of lead-acid battery factories.

On the afternoon of the next day, the factory decided to suspend production for a week. “After the inspection results come out, we will decide whether or not to continue production. In the middle of this week, all the production lines in the plant will be stopped.” said Yang Lanqing, Vice President of Johnson Controls Energy & Power Business and General Manager of Asia Pacific Region.

Johnson Controls is the world's largest supplier of lead-acid batteries. This time it was involved in the blood lead crisis. It was acquired by Shanghai Johnson Controls International Battery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Shanghai Johnson”) in 2005, and its factory has an annual output of 700. Million sets of production capacity.

According to China's “Standard for Sanitary Protection Distances of Lead Battery Plants,” the distance between Shanghai Johnson and the nearby community is fully compliant, and both have been safe for 12 years. However, in the entire Kangqiao Industrial Park, Shanghai Johnson is the only storage battery plant, and its annual lead consumption is also the largest in Shanghai.

One battery company executive who had visited Shanghai Johnson said that the factory only collects and reuses dust powder for nearly 10 million yuan per year, while the disposable investment for environmental protection equipment reaches 10 million U.S. dollars. Reinvested in multiple scale production companies in China.

Johnson Controls also takes pride in its own environmental standards. Yang Yuqing stated that the blood lead level of his company's employees is lower than the blood lead level of the residents of the city in Shanghai. The company has also won the award issued by the Ministry of Health for this purpose. According to Yu Dan, the person in charge of the Asia Public Relations Department of the company, this week’s “discontinuation of production” was also due to the fact that the amount of lead used for production had reached the limit of the annual amount of lead used by the environmental protection department for approval, and had nothing to do with the “pollution” in the previous rumors.

However, "Shanghai Securities" quoted informed sources, said Johnson, "Every day, lead powder produces more than 30 tons, sometimes the factory will open the skylight, lead powder will drift out." Last year, Johnson's three production lines produced 400 lead-acid batteries More than 10,000 sets. Since July of this year, the factory has shut down a production line due to a large-scale environmental inspection of lead-acid batteries.

Yu Dan also admitted that at the beginning of June, due to the improper operation of the maintenance workers, "the factory discharged short-term abnormalities."

For Johnson Controls, which is seeking rapid expansion in China, this blood lead incident is a big problem. After being affected by the financial turmoil in 2009, Johnson Controls was forced to close 28 plants in North America and Europe. Since then, Johnson Controls has increased its investment in China.

According to its plan, by 2015 its battery capacity in China will reach 30 million units. In addition to the three production bases it had previously owned, it is also investigating an on-board battery production plant planned for production in 2013 and is planning to invest approximately US$100 million.

All this was forced on September 14 to press the Pause button. This is not the only company suspended in this industry. In the environmental inspection of lead-acid batteries called “unprecedented efforts”, 583 companies were closed down before the end of July, 405 were suspended from production, and 610 were discontinued.

According to the latest information released by the Shanghai Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, both the wastewater discharge and the exhaust emission are “up to standard” in the inspection of the clean production of Shanghai Johnson.

"If Shanghai Johnson Controls has no problems in emissions, then the culprit leading to over-standard blood lead among schoolchildren is likely to be a problem of sedimentary pollution that has not caused much concern before." Yi Xiaobo, Director of the National Standardization Committee for Lead-Acid Batteries Said, and this will promote the process of adding "sedimentary pollution" to industry standards.

The popular explanation for sedimentary pollution is that even if the emission of lead is “compliance”, the company still emits only a small amount of lead. The lead powder can be transmitted through airborne dust. Even though the amount of emissions is very small at each time, over time, it will still cause pollution.