I wonder how long these fellows last

[G7PSK]

These men in Pakistan must be so full of lead they sink, certainly it must effect them severely handling all this lead this way.

https://youtu.be/G-4MpN1Jzog

[Nusa]

These men in Pakistan must be so full of lead they sink, certainly it must effect them severely handling all this lead this way.

https://youtu.be/G-4MpN1Jzog

It's not OSHA standards, but it's not as bad as you imply. Inorganic lead isn't nearly as dangerous to handle as some people think it is. It's not easily absorbed through the skin. So long as they are religious about washing up before eating (not shown in video, so don't know), ingestion dangers are mitigated. Nor did I see a major lead dust issue, and it looked well ventilated, so the inhalation shouldn't be that bad. Yes, lead was melted and soldered, but that's way below the vapor stage.

[eti]

Safety footwear, gloves and eyewear all in place? [X] Check. 

[Gyro]

I wonder if these production line guys are undercutting the sole street traders! 

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/rebuilding-lead-acid-batteries-the-street-vendor-method/

[thm_w]

I think the melting plastic fumes here are more of a concern, that and the battery acid without protection.

[G7PSK]

Looks like the same process, perhaps the man expanded his  business.

[Buk]

Incredible ingenuity and skill.

And I remember watching guys in the body shop at Vauxhall, Luton in the late 70's UK doing remidial bodywork; wiping molton lead over any dings and ill-fitting panel joints in the assembled bodies prior to them entering the paint shop. Their only mitigation for the risks of their job was a free pint of milk a day.

Its easy to watch these vids and see the health and safety violations, but it wasn't that long ago that the 'West' had no better working practices.

[Sal Ammoniac]

These men in Pakistan must be so full of lead they sink, certainly it must effect them severely handling all this lead this way.

https://youtu.be/G-4MpN1Jzog

These men in Pakistan must be so full of lead they sink, certainly it must effect them severely handling all this lead this way.

https://youtu.be/G-4MpN1Jzog

It's not OSHA standards, but it's not as bad as you imply. Inorganic lead isn't nearly as dangerous to handle as some people think it is. It's not easily absorbed through the skin. So long as they are religious about washing up before eating (not shown in video, so don't know), ingestion dangers are mitigated. Nor did I see a major lead dust issue, and it looked well ventilated, so the inhalation shouldn't be that bad. Yes, lead was melted and soldered, but that's way below the vapor stage.

It's not OSHA standards, but it's not as bad as you imply. Inorganic lead isn't nearly as dangerous to handle as some people think it is. It's not easily absorbed through the skin. So long as they are religious about washing up before eating (not shown in video, so don't know), ingestion dangers are mitigated. Nor did I see a major lead dust issue, and it looked well ventilated, so the inhalation shouldn't be that bad. Yes, lead was melted and soldered, but that's way below the vapor stage.

Breathing the burning plastic fumes is probably more harmful than the lead.

[CatalinaWOW]

Yeah, lead is way down on my list of concerns here.  Acid burns on bare feet, hot lead splashes on bare feet and arms, plastic fumes, plastic burns, cuts from metal slivers and then lead.

These guys know what they are doing, and will probably live fairly long lives. 

[Sal Ammoniac]

Incredible ingenuity and skill.

Very crude and labor intensive. Factory made batteries must either be unavailable in Pakistan or very expensive to make this work profitable.

[james_s]

Very crude and labor intensive. Factory made batteries must either be unavailable in Pakistan or very expensive to make this work profitable.

Probably both. I don't know what a typical wage is in rural Pakistan but it could be something like 50 cents to a few dollars a day. A brand new truck battery might cost $500 so this could easily be cost effective in that environment, it might even be a livable wage. It doesn't actually look all that difficult to do, and it's a way of recycling materials that are probably expensive and in short supply.

I remember melting down lead fishing weights in a tin can with a blowtorch and casting things when I was a kid. I played with mercury a few times too, and did lots of other stuff that a lot of people would be appalled by today. I'm still here.

Edit: I just looked it up, the average wage in Pakistan is USD$498 a month, so about $25 per weekday if you compare it to a Western 5 day work week. A typical truck battery is pushing up on $300 new https://www.interstatebatteries.com/products/8d-mhd, so that's about 3 weeks wages for a brand new battery, vs however long it takes to do a complete rebuild. Looks worth it to me.

[G7PSK]

Back in the 70's there was a local company called "Cambridge Battery Services" that would repair a battery for you, I had one or two repaired there myself as did my father. They would dismantle a battery and replace one cell for you at the fraction of the price of a new battery but the cells and the complete new batteries they sold that they made were never as good as the one like Oldham or Lucas and other mass produced brands of the time due to the paste in the plates not being packed in as hard, they just knocked the paste into the grids with a piece of wood and the cells rapidly sludged up so repairs only got something like another useful year from a battery.

[Psi]

As with most metals the real danger is the salts of the metal. 
Raw elemental metal isn't that bad, even mercury.
But if someone hands you a container full of a mercury salt, I would carefully put it down and run, then wash your hands a few times with the vigor of a doctor about to perform surgery

[james_s]

I'm reminded of this incident. https://www.science.org/content/article/mercury-poisoning-kills-lab-chemist

Not a salt, but another compound of mercury. I'd rather swim in a vat of pure mercury than get in the same room as a few ml of that stuff.

[xrunner]

I just watched it. I think you could say I just had a "It's a Wonderful Life" experience for myself. 

[eti]

These men in Pakistan must be so full of lead they sink, certainly it must effect them severely handling all this lead this way.

https://youtu.be/G-4MpN1Jzog

Not sure if you knew, but if you post "normal" YT links which haven't been shortened to the ".be" domain, the actual video will embed in the forum properly, as opposed to the viewer having to navigate away to YouTube.com (and down many rabbit holes and distractions, if they're like me  )

Just paste the URL in this format: h t t p : / / www . youtube . com / watch?v=XXXXXXX (obviously your URL has no spaces - those were added to prevent forum embedding a dummy video.

[TimFox]

Many years ago, I went to a local lead foundry to get a steel tube filled with lead for x-ray shielding purposes.
Although this was before anti-smoking laws, I was surprised to see everyone in the front office was smoking.
They gave me a quick tour of the foundry area, and I realized that smoking was the least of their worries.

[xrunner]

I have watched several more videos on that YT channel "The Mechanic". Working with heavy machinery with sandals on (no safety shoes). Grinding metal with shavings flying and no safety glasses, breathing noxious fumes. But I get it, they are where they are in the world.

They get the job done though. Some guy drops off an engine block and they drag it onto a piece of cardboard on a dirt floor, then proceed to repair the cylinder bores. No one in this country would accept such working conditions. Just makes you think about what you might be able to accomplish if you really had to get something done.

[jmelson]

Well, they did NOT show the messy part, where they BURN the old plates to reduce the Lead Sulfate to elemental lead and then pour molten lead to make new plates.  That pretty much dwarfs the hazards of what was shown in the video.

Jon

[jmelson]

I have watched several more videos on that YT channel "The Mechanic". Working with heavy machinery with sandals on (no safety shoes). Grinding metal with shavings flying and no safety glasses, breathing noxious fumes. But I get it, they are where they are in the world.

They get the job done though. Some guy drops off an engine block and they drag it onto a piece of cardboard on a dirt floor, then proceed to repair the cylinder bores. No one in this country would accept such working conditions. Just makes you think about what you might be able to accomplish if you really had to get something done.

Many years ago, in the US, there were guys that went to disabled heavy trucks on the side of the highway, and tore down the engine right there, bored out the old cylinder liner, shrink-fitted a new liner in place and mounted a portable boring fixture and bored the cylinder liner, fitted a new piston and put it all back together.

Jon

[bson]

Very crude and labor intensive.

Well, that's how it is in most of the world.  In the west, labor is very expensive and machines relatively cheap.  In developing economies, labor is dirt cheap relative to machinery.  In much of the world it's cheaper to hire 20 people to dig a trench with hand tools than to rent a backhoe, for example.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Very crude and labor intensive.

Well, that's how it is in most of the world.  In the west, labor is very expensive and machines relatively cheap.  In developing economies, labor is dirt cheap relative to machinery.  In much of the world it's cheaper to hire 20 people to dig a trench with hand tools than to rent a backhoe, for example.

A few years ago my company had a development office in Calcutta. The company paid the manager of the team over there the equivalent of USD$30,000 a year. On this salary he was able to employ a live-in maid, cook, and chauffeur.