Australian air quailty

[Syndrome]

It is nearly three decades since all new cars sold in Australia had to run on unleaded fuel. And a fair few years since leaded fuel has been phased out altogether. Is there any information available to the public which shows if lead levels in the air have reduced from 1985 to 2015?

[MR REKLAW]

I found this bit of info.
How much of a problem is air-borne lead in Australia?
The amount of lead in Australia's air has decreased significantly since the introduction of unleaded petrol in 1986. Before the phase-out of leaded petrol, which began in 1993, the national air quality standard for lead was regularly exceeded in urban environments. Levels are now less than 10 per cent of the national annual standard of 0.5 micrograms per cubic metre of air. http://aqicn.org/map/australia/ Check this out also.

[CoupeKing]

My Grandfather played with lead based toy cars when he was a kid, and there's nothing wrong bleee daaaghhh dinggg zaerttt terrrr with me.

[jpblue1000]

Interesting reporting on recent studies.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...british-export

JP

[superyob]

I don't know about the air but I saw something on TV some months ago about children being poisoned by lead in their yards as a result of the leaded fuels of the past...

[XR Martin]

Dont worry, more people are buying diesels so we're just getting poisioned by NOx instead.

[castellan]

You can't breath in lead.
It falls to the ground.

Unleaded is much more harmful to breath in as it can make you feel sick instantly smelling it, like when cars go up a steep hill and the throttle is down more so and this just tosses what is un burnt fuel into the cat.

Unleaded fuel is much more toxic, do not wash parts up in it with your bear hands as it can seep into your blood stream through your skin.

Unleaded fuel has a chemical that pollutes the under ground water and that's why it is banned in the USA.

E10 does not have the toxic chemical that is a problem as it replaces that chemical that is bad.

[xxx000]

Originally Posted by castellan

You can't breath in lead.
It falls to the ground.


Unleaded fuel is much more toxic, do not wash parts up in it with your bear hands as it can seep into your blood stream through your skin.

Plus it's animal cruelty getting a bear to work on a car. Their hands are too big anyway.

[Lunch]

Dude that was terrible, even if the spelling was wrong

[castellan]

Originally Posted by xxx000

Plus it's animal cruelty getting a bear to work on a car. Their hands are too big anyway.

I did not think that Bears had hands.
Even Koala bears.

Years ago from what I was informed was that the lead in the air from exhaust was not the problem to breath in, now if there is lead in the air from exhaust it's not the same lead as that that drops to the ground, I would think, and it's got another chemical name of type lead that you are on about.

The chemical that replaced lead is far worse than lead and that's why the USA has E10 now and got rid of unleaded, and that's the whole point of E10 regardless of how you cut it.

E10 is the future for now as to pollution control fuel until they can come up with something better.

[new2ford]

There's a push against diesel cars in Europe and some cities are talking about banning or charging them. The improvements in efficiency of petrol engined cars are working against diesels too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/...pollution.html

Diesel buses are also starting to be banned from city centres and there's been a lot of development of hybrid and electric buses. The financial benefits are illusory too. Fuel consumption may be a little less but they don't benefit overall WOL costs. I think the writing is on the wall. I wouldn't buy a diesel.

[aussiblue]

You can't breath in lead.
It falls to the ground.

Where did you dream that one up? Yes lead is a heavy metal and while generally most of the lead discharged into air falls out near the source, about 20 percent of it will be widely dispersed as dust or as less heavy but equally toxic lead based compounds. It's off to work in the dusty lead mines with a breathing apparatus for you.

[castellan]

Originally Posted by aussiblue

Where did you dream that one up? Yes lead is a heavy metal and while generally most of the lead discharged into air falls out near the source, about 20 percent of it will be widely dispersed as dust or as less heavy but equally toxic lead based compounds. It's off to work in the dusty lead mines with a breathing apparatus for you.

Look it up, you can not breath in lead from an exhaust from a car driving by as it just does not happen that way.

What happens with lead paint is that you get it on you and your hands then you wipe your mouth and their is your lead.

[XR Martin]

Yeah lol at not being able to breathe in lead.
So im sure you would be willing to breathe in the fumes from burning lead paint then?

[uniacidz]

As new2ford added, this goes further.

France wants to ban diesels in capitals, London already going to do in capitals

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/eart...ners-warn.html

[aussiblue]

Look it up, you can not breath in lead from an exhaust from a car driving by as it just does not happen that way.

So you are narrowing your comment to just lead in fuel. So yes; you are still wrong but you can look it up too:

http://www.lead.org.au/history_of_le..._the_world.htm

The removal of lead from gasoline in 1990, regarded by many as one of the major public health triumphs of the 20th century, had an immediate impact. Between 1976 and 1994, the mean blood lead concentration in children dropped from 13.7 mcg/dL to 3.2 mcg/dL, in direct proportion to the amount of tetraethyl lead produced. One could want no clearer testimony to the efficacy of a well-conceived and consistently applied public health policy.

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum...07.05.x.html#c

Leaded gasoline is the major source of dispersing lead into the human environment. When leaded gasoline is burned, it emits small particles of lead into the air, where they remain for extended periods of time. These lead particles will eventually fall out into soil and dust, creating a large amount of lead to continue to poison generations unless covered or removed. The dispersive nature of leaded gasoline and its long-term effects, the ease with which lead enters the body after it is emitted by motor vehicles, and the vulnerability of at-risk urban populations, especially children, combine to make elimination of leaded gasoline.

Lead in the air has come from a variety of sources. One of the largest contributors has been from leaded gasoline. Millions of tons of lead were added to gas before use was limited by EPA regulations restricting the use of lead in gasoline. Much of this lead is still present in the environment as lead in soils and lead in dust. Aside from lead paints, lead is emitted into the air from industrial emissions. These industrial sources included smelters, refineries, incinerators, power plants, manufacturing operations, recycling efforts, and hundreds of other sources.

http://www.lung.org/healthy-air/outd...rces/lead.html

Inhaled lead enters the body when a person breathes in particles of lead suspended in the air.

http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.co...h/art2106.html

There are two common ways to get lead poisoning: you can breathe it or you can eat it. Lead is breathed into the lungs from polluted air or absorbed into the body through the digestive tract. As the above scenario suggests, however, there is a third way — being shot.

Snip~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the early 20th century, along with the automobile, came leaded oil and gasoline. Once lead from auto or incinerator emissions enters the environment it remains airborne indefinitely.

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerc...ns/athome/lead

In the past, when lead was added to gasoline, breathing automobile exhaust was the major source of lead exposure for most people. Lead from exhaust also contaminated the soil near roads. The use of lead in gasoline for road vehicles was phased out in the 1980s and early 1990s, although it can still be used in some off-road vehicles and in airplanes. Much of the lead deposited decades ago still remain in the soil today.

etc etc.

[aussiblue]

And if you want the science just enter "inhalation of lead from gasoline exhaust" in Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com.au/schhp?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 for thousands of research papers.

[aussiblue]

Note the lead in exhaust gas was (is in some 3rd world countries) emitted as extremely small but very numerous particles that can stay airborne for some time.

eg http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.o...t/290/1376/577

[NTF6]

Originally Posted by aussiblue

Note the lead in exhaust gas was (is in some 3rd world countries) emitted as extremely small but very numerous particles that can stay airborne for some time.

I just spent a week in Hanoi, I wonder what that did to me?
9 million people and 5 million scooters!

[XR Martin]

Yeah the pollution from those scooters are greater than that of a typical family car. Even decent motorcycles are worse.

[aussiblue]

I just spent a week in Hanoi, I wonder what that did to me?
9 million people and 5 million scooters!

Yes; we'll now be monitoring your future posts for heavy metal induced craziness. :-)

[XR Martin]

Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl is the product that replaced 'lead' in fuels. Its still in E10 blended fuel also. If you are looking at conspiracys the only reason E10 is mandated in the US is due to the massive corn industry there. (where their ethanol is derived from)

The health hazards associated with manganese compounds emitted from vehicles operating on gasoline containing MMT have been debated for decades. In 1994 (reaffirmed in 1998, 2001 and 2010), Health Canada concluded that “airborne manganese resulting from the combustion of MMT in gasoline powered vehicles is not entering the Canadian environment in quantities or under conditions that may constitute a health risk”[19] and confirmed they were taking no action with respect to MMT. The 2003 NICNAS study ruled that the airborne concentrations of manganese as a result of car emissions from vehicles using fuel containing MMT posed no health hazard.

Additional health studies, overseen by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have been conducted in order to explain the transport of manganese in the body. These studies, the most recent available, published by the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences from 2007 through 2011 and submitted to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the framework of the Clean Air Act, show that the body’s natural mechanisms can handle a wide range of manganese intake, whether from inhalation or ingestion.[20] While these mechanisms can be overwhelmed if exposures to manganese are very high (as in the case of some occupational exposures), the testing confirms that the body can safely handle inhaled manganese at, and well above, levels observed when MMT is used in gasoline. The studies also indicate that MMT use is safe for the entire population including vulnerable groups such as infants and the elderly. Although the EPA will now formally review the research findings, the US Agency recommended this data as meeting the Clean Air Act’s health study’s requirements and objectives.

[aussiblue]

Years ago from what I was informed was that the lead in the air from exhaust was not the problem to breath in, now if there is lead in the air from exhaust it's not the same lead as that that drops to the ground, I would think, and it's got another chemical name of type lead that you are on about.

You were misinformed. There was only one lead compound commonly used in petrol and it was Tetraethyllead (TEL). Lead emissions from TEL does not immediately fall to the ground and it can be breathed in. In the hot cylinder of a gasoline engine, the bonds between the lead atom and the ethyl groups are broken. Upon combustion, the lead atom in TEL forms lead oxide (PbO). As I said in a previous post it is emitted in very fine micron particles.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead

TEL is produced by reacting chloroethane with a sodium–lead alloy. 4 NaPb + 4 CH3CH2Cl → (CH3CH2)4Pb + 4 NaCl + 3 Pb
The product is recovered by steam distillation, leaving a sludge of lead and sodium chloride. TEL is a viscous colourless liquid. Because TEL is charge neutral and contains an exterior of alkyl groups, it is highly lipophilic and soluble in petrol (gasoline).

~~~Snip ~~~~

Lead pollution from engine exhaust is dispersed into the air and into the vicinity of roads and easily inhaled.

Also http://www.epa.gov/pbt/pubs/alkylaction.htm#descript

Alkyl-lead is released to the environment primarily through evaporative emissions from unburned gasoline retained in an engine’s carburetor or fuel tanks and through evaporative losses during the filling of gasoline tanks, accidental spillages, and releases during production. Typically, only a very small percentage of alkyl-lead is exhausted uncombusted when driving at constant speeds. However, alkyl-lead compounds combine with other compounds during the combustion process to form lead halides (e.g., PbBrCl, 2PbBrClCNH4Cl, etc.) that are subsequently emitted as microparticulates in exhaust.

Alkyl-lead in the atmosphere degrades rapidly by direct photolysis, reaction with ozone, and by reaction with hydroxyl compounds. The half-lives of TEL and TML in summer atmospheres is approximately two hours and nine hours, respectively. In winter atmospheres, the half lives of both TEL and TML consists of several days. In water and soil, alkyl-lead compounds are also degraded to other forms of lead, eventually forming stable inorganic lead compounds. Therefore, alkyl-lead itself is not a persistent environmental compound. However, it breaks down in the environment (or is emitted following combustion) to other forms of lead which are much more persistent.

Airborne lead particles (such as those emitted as exhaust) may remain airborne for about 10 days and, therefore, may be transported far from the original source. Lead is removed from the atmosphere and deposited on soil and water surfaces via wet or dry deposition. In soils, most lead is strongly retained via the formation of stable solid phase compounds, precipitates, or complexes with organic matter. In general, most of these forms of lead are quite insoluble and thus not easily leached to underground water. However, leaching may occur under acidic conditions, where lead concentrations are extremely high, or in the presence of substances (e.g., soluble organic matter, high concentrations of chlorides or sulfates) which form relatively soluble complexes with lead. Transport of lead to surface waters most commonly occurs through direct deposition from the atmosphere or as lead associated with suspended solids in the erosional process. In water, lead is typically bound to sediments.

Yes; promotion and adoption of E10 and similar products in Australia and the US is about looking after the vested interests of the various producers.

[aussiblue]

Ok Trimethyllead chloride [TML] has sometimes also similarly been used in petrol. Less so than TEL and instead of TEL, but in any event, with similar noxious outcomes.

[xtremerus]

The combatant are arguing over their own definition of Lead.
That is, the Lead element Pb on its own, and the other, Lead compounds.
All react differently.

Just as common salt [NaCl], is referred to as just Sodium.

I'm damn sure I would never put Sodium on my fish & chips.

[aussiblue]

The combatant are arguing over their own definition of Lead.

a) I'm not a combatant; it's a debate not a fight.
b) No; the original claim was that lead cannot be inhaled. But it can. In WA Lead dust from mined lead for example ( see http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/es...531-1zkwg.html) has been an issue and yes it can be inhaled as can also lead compounds from exhausted leaded petrol. For similar reasons, OHS requirements now generally place service months limits on personnel working at lead mines.

[aussiblue]

... and http://dea.org.au/news/article/how_e...s_human_health

Acute poisoning may result from inhalation of lead dust or fumes, for example, lead soldering without protective equipment or for young children in particular, ingestion of contaminated soil or old lead paint. Exposure also depends on the type of lead (inorganic or organic) and its bio-availability. Both inorganic and organic lead can be toxic but will be absorbed at different rates and via different types of exposure.

[aussiblue]

has also been an issue in Mt Isa http://www.livingwithlead.com.au/about-lead/

Lead can enter our bodies through ingestion (eating and swallowing) of lead contaminated food, water, soil, dust or paint chips and through inhalation (breathing in) of lead dust particles. A common way of absorbing lead, particularly for young children, is through contaminated hand to mouth movements

There is no non toxic form of lead or lead compounds.

[aussiblue]

You'll find some sites on the net claiming "metallic lead itself is not toxic". This many years ago used to be considered the case by some ("us Kentucky hillbillies have been eating lead pellets in game all our life and we're perfectly normal") and was often used by the US gun lobby to claim there was no danger to eating game containing lead pellets (sometimes these claims are still made). But research has confirmed otherwise see https://www.peregrinefund.org/.../20...d-exposure.pdf and http://www.enr.gov.nt.ca/sites/defau..._and_paint.pdf etc. Lead in any form is toxic.

[jpblue1000]

While I don't believe it to be the primary cause, some historians and scientists claim lead poisoning led to the downfall of the Roman Empire!

Controversial eh!

JP