The World Daily
The highly polluting leaded petrol has ended worldwide use

Photo: TWD

 

By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | AUGUST 31st 2021 

 

Algeria had been the last country in the world to still use leaded petrol, but, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), that use has now ended, marking a global environmental milestone.

For almost a century since the leaded petrol’s invention, it’s contaminated air, soil and water repeatedly, causing millions of instances of lead poisoning all across the world. Now, there is no longer any country in the world that uses the petrol for cars and lorries, marking a point of celebration for both the UN, and environmentalists worldwide.

“Ending the use of leaded petrol will prevent more than one million premature deaths each year from heart disease, strokes and cancer, and it will protect children whose IQs are damaged by exposure to lead,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who referred to the fruitful elimination of the leaded petrol as an “international success story.”

The fuel had already seen massive bans across the 1980s, in the majority of economically sound countries. Algeria had run out of the toxic substance back in July, and haven’t returned to it since then. Lead petrol has been linked with plenty of dangerous conditions, from strokes to heart disease, cancer, and even poor brain development among children. Lead poisoning is no longer anywhere near as terrible an issue as it once was, but now it may further progress towards becoming a rarity.

“It clearly shows that if we can phase out one of the most dangerous polluting fuels in the 20th century, we can absolutely phase out all fossil fuels,” said a climate campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, Thandile Chinyavanhu. The Greenpeace body themselves have referred to this development as “the end of one toxic era.”

The first warning signs of the danger of lead poisoning were pointed out back in 1924 at a US giant Standard Oil refinery, after at least a dozen people had been hospitalised and five head died, suffering convulsions and related symptoms.

UNEP launched its campaign to put a stop to the use of these fuels all the way back in 2002. Back then, two decades ago, over 100 countries still used the leaded petrol despite the known health and environmental risks. Most of these were low-income countries, as some of the bigger ones – such as the US and China, had already ceased using it. 

 

In a statement, UNEP said that the complete eradication of the use of leaded petrol would have great advantages, including that it would “prevent more than 1.2 million premature deaths per year, increase IQ points among children, save $2.44 trillion [2.07 trillion euros] for the global economy, and decrease crime rates.”

North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan stopped selling leaded petrol in 2016, and Algeria was the most recent and hopefully final country to stop these operations, following Yemen and Iraq.

“The transport sector is responsible for nearly a quarter of energy-related global greenhouse gas emissions and is set to grow to one third by 2050,” said the UNEP global body. “This includes millions of poor-quality used vehicles exported from Europe, the United States and Japan, to mid- and low-income countries.”

They added: “This contributes to planet warming and air polluting traffic and [is] bound to cause accidents.” 

 

By Patryk Krych | © The World Daily 2021 

Source: Al Jazeera, BBC,