If these numbers are true, why this is not on first pages of all media all the time? Crazy. I wonder how reliable are these numbers.
The dangers of lead paint have been known for over 100 years. France banned it in 1909. The League of Nations adopted a treaty on it in 1922. The US declined to join the treaty due to industry lobbying and didn't get around to banning it until 1978.
By declining to ban it the US cost itself $Ts when accounting for the developmental delays, lost IQ points, health problems, increased crime, lost productivity, remediation, etc. All so that one tiny corner of the chemical industry could have a little more profit.
Google tells me lead paint wasn’t banned in the UK until the 1990’s.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_Unit...
France was 1948, but lots of lead poisoned children anyways since the paint is still on buildings people live in.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13918871-200-lead-pai...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paint
"The League of Nations banned white-lead interior paint in 1922 (you know an environmental regulation is old if it was issued by the League of Nations), but the U.S. declined to implement the ban."
https://environmentlawhistory.blogspot.com/2016/01/lead-regu...
I made no claims about the UK.
I found this article:
"White lead pigment in paint had been recognized as toxic and restricted since 1915; it had been banned from professional use since 1926 and from craft work since 1948."[0]
Wikipedia's citation[1] does appear to be a delcaration from 1909 stating: "ART. 2. - A l'expiration de la cinquième année qui suivra la promulgation de la présente loi, l'emploi de la céruse, de l'huile de lin plombifère et de tout produit spécialisé renfermant de la céruse, sera interdit dans tous les travaux de peinture de quelque nature qu'ils soient, exécutés par les ouvriers peintres, tant à l'extérieur qu'à l'intérieur des bâtiments_"
Translated using https://www.deepl.com/translator : "ART. 2 - At the end of the fifth year following the promulgation of the present law, the use of ceruse, leaded linseed oil and any specialized product containing ceruse, will be prohibited in all painting work of any nature whatsoever, carried out by painters, both outside and inside buildings." ("ceruse" is white lead.)
This supports the 1915 (the fifth year following 1909) in the first article.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448552/
[1] https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/fichiers/numerisations3/bu... (p202 of the PDF, p172 by the original document page numbers)
"One of the most concerning sources of lead exposure is the unsound recycling of used lead-acid batteries (ULABs), most of which are found in cars, trucks and other vehicles. Recycling activities are often conducted in informal, unlicensed, and frequently illegal open-air operations close to homes and schools." In general page 2 goes into common sources, most of which shouldn't affect Western Europe but are apparently quite common in poorer countries.
1: https://www.unicef.org/media/109361/file/The%20toxic%20truth...
"I only buy organic locally hand-made batteries."
While it's nice there's finally some progress made in unleaded high octane avgas (G100UL), from a public health perspective it's not a huge issue compared to many other sources of lead in the environment.
Do you normally?
> a hobby for rich peopl
Most flying is neither a hobby nor done by rich people.
On the other hand, smaller, piston-engine aircrafts are overwhelmingly a hobby for relatively wealthy people, where leaded avgas is commonplace.
This is just anecdotal, but in the aerodrome near where I live, I'd be surprised if less than 90% of the flights are leisure flights.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...
So roughly 50% of the leaded fuel is used in personal/leisure flights in the US. I wouldn't consider the other 50% anywhere close to "the vast majority", and from the source, and it's largely safety and rescue.
Moreover, demand is expexted to grow precisely because of leisure and high net-worth personal use[0].
Now, unless you include business trips of rich people as "money making business", there are very few commercial fights otherwise, serving mostly remote, low demand areas.
[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aviation-gasoline-avgas-marke...
Leaded paints were certainly widely used as rustproofing primer on steel constructions, as a bedding compound, and as anti-fouling paint on boats. The traditional formula is a mixture of lead oxide and linseed oil, giving it a characteristic red color.
Most of these uses are AFAIU nowadays banned, and replacements are available for practically(?) all lead paint usecases. I think it's still possible to buy it for some special usecases, though (like buildings/boats built/maintained with "traditional" methods).
I don't actually know about the situation in Europe in general, but e.g. Sweden prohibited lead paint for indoor use already in 1860, and France in prohibited lead-based indoor and outdoor house paints in 1909. Based on some quick googling it seems several European countries prohibited lead-based house paints (including outdoor paints) in the 1920'ies.
EU went quite far, even banning lead from solder.
REACH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Auth...
RoHS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...
IMHO REACH didn't go far enough, it should be up to the maker of a chemical to prove that it's safe before it's sold and used.
https://uspirg.org/news/usp/recall-toys-still-found-lead-pai...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2016/04/26/the-ot...
https://www.insider.com/amazon-selling-toxic-toys-lead-poiso...
Our water was tested years ago by the waterboard and came back way below the legal limit.
Yet still... I'm suspicious. Can anyone point me at resources to help prove it's unsafe?
In London or the general area? The water is lousy with calcium, hard AF, so that's a good bet.
The notorious lead in the water issue in Flint, Michigan was not just "pipes made from lead" but also that they carelessly switched water supply to a new one that over time, corroded the deposits off the inside of the pipes so that the lead could leach out.
Once that had happened, "the damage already done to Flint’s water supply infrastructure by more than 18 months of exposure to corrosive water. Even after the water supply was reconnected to the (original water supply), officials advised against drinking Flint water."
https://www.britannica.com/event/Flint-water-crisis
As to what to do with your pipes - you can find water testing kits on the big online retailer for under £30
All it takes is a change in ph of your water supply to put you at risk.
(ETA: It also caused lead to be released- non-lead pipes had actually leached lead from the water over many years, acting as a filter. The lead was chemically bound to both lead and non-lead pipes. Changing the chemistry caused the process to reverse and dump all that lead back into the water at much higher concentrations than would occur just using a 100% lead pipe system.)
And lead paint is similar. In-situ it's pretty harmless. It's the removal that's dangerous and is more likely to poison.
This is why people arguing for "do-something!" actions using "What harm could it do?" reasoning should always be fought until safety is confirmed experimentally the field.
"What harm could it do?" should always be a red flag for "don't know what you don't know" ignorance, and responded to as if it's a real, non-rhetorical question.
This is not completely true. I remember some studies looking at lead accumulation in dust. It's not just macroscopic paint chips on the outside of houses that children ingest, it's dust in the house as well.
Just replacing the pipes seems like the optimal solution, but half-measures are better than nothing.
I'm not going to look up those chemicals - I doubt that they would pass modern safety standards. If you maintain a water supply that has lead anywhere you should figure out what modern chemicals to use to prevent lead (or whatever your pipes are made of) from being eroded. I hope the people who maintain water supplies already know about this though.
Where was the water tested? I've heard that here in France, water is often tested before going into the pipes, and not after flowing for the faucet. If that's the case for you too, I'd encourage you to test the water going out of the faucet, since this is the water you actually drink. In France we can do that at labs that take care of stuff like blood samples. A naive search gave me this website https://watersafetestkits.co.uk/which-water-test-kit/ that sells water test kits, for example.
While this is true, it arguably should be discussed more. The lead hasn't all just gone away.
e.g.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/224474/lead-from-leaded-petr...
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2021/06/lead-persis...