The United Nations Organization (UN) has announced that leaded petrol has gone out of business around the world, after a nearly twenty-year campaign to induce the last countries that used it to abandon it, switching to less polluting and dangerous fuels for health.
Algeria, the last country that still allowed its sale, stopped the distribution of leaded petrol in July, finally making the expected result possible. The UN called the introduction of this fuel almost a century ago an “environmental and health catastrophe”. In many countries, the sale was already banned for some time, but it will still take decades before the effects of the emissions and contamination produced wear off.
Lead in petrol
Leaded petrol (what in Italy has long been called “Super” or “red petrol”) was developed in early 1920s from a General Motors research laboratory in the United States. The researchers noted that adding gasoline with tetraethyl lead reduced the risk of unexpected detonations inside the engines, in addition to those induced by the spark plug, which could damage them or make them less efficient. However, the substance was extremely toxic: both for those who handled it in preparing the gasoline, and for those who used it or inhaled the gases.
Despite safety concerns and the numerous deaths that occurred in the early years in the factories that produced it, leaded gasoline was widely promoted by the automotive industry and quickly spread to much of the world.
In the 1950s, the first studies showed that even the exhaust gases of leaded petrol were highly toxic, to the point of increasing the risk of various diseases. In the following decades they were linked to increased blood pressure, kidney problems, forms of anemia, blindness, infertility and several other diseases.
The turning point came in 1979, when research conducted in the United States revealed an unusual concentration of lead in the teeth of school-age children, who at the same time were shown to have behavioral problems and a reduction in their IQ. The study, which would receive some criticism in the following years, was nevertheless central in raising awareness of the risks involved in tetraethyl lead.
Lead free
Starting in the 1980s, governments began to review rules and regulations for the use of leaded petrol, establishing ever lower limits for the concentration of the substance in the fuels. European and national regulations made it possible to almost completely abandon leaded petrol in Europe relatively quickly. Car manufacturers were forced to produce vehicles using only unleaded petrol (what is commonly referred to as “unleaded petrol”) in the mid-1990s, while leaded petrol distribution was stopped in Europe in early 2002. the sale of very limited quantities for particular uses, for example in historic vehicles).
However, leaded petrol continued to be widespread, especially in poorer and developing countries, where the car fleet was older and a conversion to unleaded fuels was not always possible. That is why the UN organized the Collaboration for Clean Vehicles and Fuels in 2002, setting itself the goal of putting an end to the use of leaded petrol. The initiative also involved oil companies in a rather unprecedented collaboration with environmental organizations. The goal was not simple, considering that at the time leaded petrol was still used in almost 120 countries around the world, including all of Africa.
Africa
The efforts focused on the African continent, with information campaigns for governments and the population on the dangers of tetraethyl lead and, at the same time, with activities for dispelling some common myths such as those about the poor performance of unleaded petrol. Studies and research were also initiated in some countries, such as Ghana and Kenya, finding high levels of lead in the blood of children. The purchase of fuels from large foreign multinationals was also encouraged, in the event that domestic producers continued to distribute leaded petrol.
Within a few years all of Sub-Saharan Africa switched to unleaded petrol, an unexpected success in such a short time and which helped to give the impetus to put an end to the use of leaded petrol in the rest of the continent. In other areas of the world, the transition was longer, especially in the Middle East and Asia.
Part of the resistance came from Innospec, a company present in the United States and the United Kingdom among the largest producers of tetraethyl lead. As of 2010, it emerged that Innospec had tried to bribe politicians in Indonesia and Iraq to keep them from selling leaded gasoline.
Last year, Algeria was the only country where leaded petrol could normally be purchased. However, in September, the government announced that it would start a process of decontamination of the distribution network, banning leaded petrol within 10 months. In July this year, the Algerian government confirmed that it had stopped selling this fuel, effectively marking the end of lead in petrol.
Disposal
It will still take a long time to get rid of all the lead put into circulation in almost a century of use, but several studies have already shown the positive effects of ban. Research from California State University estimated that at least 1.2 million lives have been saved annually in recent years, including 125,000 premature deaths among children due to cardiovascular, neurological and kidney problems. In addition, the costs of health systems to treat diseases related to the use of leaded petrol have been reduced.
Its progressive disappearance has also made possible the massive use of catalytic converters, which make it possible to reduce the harmful emissions of engine exhaust gases. Their use was limited by the fact that lead would irreversibly damage their functioning.
Having achieved this goal, the UN now trusts to concentrate its efforts to accelerate the abandonment of fossil fuels for use in vehicles, replacing them with less polluting solutions and with electric motors. The leaders of the initiative estimate that in the coming decades hundreds of millions of vehicles with internal combustion engines will still be produced and distributed, especially in developing and poorer countries, where there are not sufficient economic resources or infrastructure for the use of electric vehicles.
Albeit slowly and with difficulty, the transition to electric motors has begun in richer countries, but it will take several decades to complete. However, there is a risk that many of the internal combustion engine vehicles used and abandoned to switch to electric will be sold to poorer countries, further slowing their transition to less polluting forms of mobility.
