12 SEPTEMBER 1991,
NOTES COMPILED BY GRAPHIC NEWS ©

LEAD-FREE PETROL CUTS POLLUTION

The introduction of lead-free petrol has had a significant effect on pollution, say scientists. 
Researchers from the glaciology and geophysics laboratory of the CNRS, France's national reseach organisation, claim that lead concentrations in snow falling in Greenland have decreased seven-fold between 1967 and 1989. Over the same period cadmium and zinc levels have dropped by two-thirds. Copper concentrations, from natural origins of the element, have fallen only slightly.

Research in the 1960s showed that lead concentrations in the Arctic had risen more than 200 times. This led to campaigns to reduce vehicle emissions.

The reseachers say that levels of heavy-metal pollution in the lower atmosphere of the Northern hemisphere have declined over the last 20 years as a result of reductions in industrial pollution and the use of lead-free petrol.

The data reflects much cleaner air moving over Greenland from North America, where the amount of lead in vehicle fuel has been reduced by 90 per cent since the 1960s.
The worst pollution over the arctic, including the 'Arctic haze', has come from factories in the Soviet Union, particularly metal works in the Kola peninsula.


Sources: New Scientist