Kabwe lead mine

The Broken Hill mine at Kabwe started work in 1904 under the Rhodesian Broken Hill Development Company; Anglo American controlled it for much of the twentieth century, until the Zambian state nationalised the sector in the 1970s. By the time it closed in 1994 it had produced 0.8 million tonnes of lead and 1.8 million of zinc, together with vanadium, silver and cadmium. The smelter and the tailings dumps were left next to the workers' townships with no containment.

Between 2003 and 2011 the World Bank's Copperbelt Environment Project had grass planted in the yards of 3,100 households and in schools, replaced topsoil, cleaned a canal and built 11 parks; between 2007 and 2010 about 5,000 children were tested and about 2,800 treated. The grass needed expensive watering, the imported soil eroded, and the target of bringing children's median blood lead down to 25 µg/dL was not met.

In 2014 Pure Earth measured a geometric mean of 1,470 mg/kg of lead in soils, with peaks of 62,142 mg/kg. In 2015 environmental groups paid for soil replacement at about 120 of the most contaminated homes. In 2016 the World Bank approved a second project, ZMERIP. A class action against Anglo American has been under way in South Africa since October 2020.