The World Has Finally Stopped Using Leaded Gasoline. Algeria Used The Last Stockpile

by Camila Domonoske (NPR) The final holdout, Algeria, used up the last of its stockpile of leaded gasoline in July. That's according to the U.N. Environment Programme, which has spent 19 years trying to eliminate leaded gasoline around the globe.

"The successful enforcement of the ban on leaded petrol is a huge milestone for global health and our environment," Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director, said Monday.

The United Nations estimates that the global phaseout of the toxic fuel has saved $2.44 trillion per year, thanks to improved health and lower crime rates, and prevented more than 1.2 million premature deaths.

There were other additives that could serve the same purpose — today, ethanol is widely used as a far safer alternative. But lead quickly became the standard.

In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency started an effort to phase out leaded gasoline in 1973. Starting in the 1970s, new vehicles were designed to run on unleaded gasoline. In fact, the new cleaner generation of cars couldn't run on leaded gasoline — it would destroy their catalytic converters.

The new unleaded gasoline was more expensive, but the transition was unstoppable.

By the mid-'80s, most gasoline used in the U.S. was unleaded, although leaded gasoline for passenger cars wasn't fully banned in the U.S. until 1996. (Today, leaded fuel can be used only in aircraft and off-road vehicles.)

So in 2002, UNEP launched an effort to work with governments and industry to phase out leaded fuel everywhere. READ MORE

Excerpt from Car and Driver: A filling station in Dayton, Ohio, sold the first gallon of leaded gasoline in February 1923. Thomas Midgley Jr. missed the event. The General Motors engineer who discovered that tetraethyl lead, also called TEL, raised the octane of gasoline was in Miami, Florida, convalescing from severe lead poisoning.

Midgley and his boss, Charles Kettering, the man who patented the electric starter in 1911, had ignored the known health risks of lead. Exposure affects not only the nervous, cardiovascular, and immune systems, but it can also cause major behavioral issues and learning problems in young children.

But in engines, the toxic compound eliminated knock, which was an industry-wide problem at the time. TEL was held up as the protector of valve seats and high-compression engines. Kettering also knew it was a better bet for GM than ethanol, which had similar benefits but couldn’t be patented.

Leaded gasoline was the primary fuel type produced and sold in America until 1975. Although cited as a reason for limiting the use of leaded gas, health issues associated with TEL exposure weren’t what finally caused its removal after 52 years; it was tailpipe emissions. The use of catalytic converters became necessary to meet stricter emissions regulations outlined in the Clean Air Act of 1970, and leaded gasoline proved damaging to these devices. In 1975, catalytic converters were in and lead was out.