Even Algeria, the last nation left to use the «Super», has not sold it since July. UN Secretary General Guterres: “An international success story, saving millions of lives”
Like smallpox: eradicated all over the planet. Also there leaded petrol, the old Super, has now disappeared across the Earth. Algeria, which was the last nation to sell it in distributors, stopped in July. This was announced by the United Nations Environment Program (Unep). Antonio Guterres, UN secretary general, said that the total elimination of leaded petrol “is an international success story. In this way, over a million premature deaths a year from heart disease, heart attacks and tumors have been avoided and children whose brains are most damaged by lead have been protected ”. The lead in gasoline was so polluting and invasive that in 2006 it was even possible to establish that the lead found in the hydrothermal veins of an underwater volcano in the Tyrrhenian Sea was of Australian origin. How did he get there? Released into the atmosphere by vehicle exhaust and then precipitated into the sea.
Announcement
As dangerous and deadly as smallpox, leaded gasoline, also called “red gasoline” was gradually banned in industrialized countries in the late 1980s, after scientists had brought irrefutable evidence of the damage caused by the lead contained in petrol to the environment and human health. We switched to “unleaded petrol” which initially contained benzene instead of lead. The name “green” suggests that it is more “ecological”, but in reality it is only the color that was added to distinguish it from “red”, a color that was abolished in 2012. In Italy, red petrol is no longer sold to distributors since 2001, but a small quantity is still produced for historic cars.
Tetraethyl lead
Tetraethyl lead was added to the fuel for its anti-knock qualities during compression in the combustion chambers. When we switched from “normal”, low-octane, colorless, lead-free petrol to super-octane gasoline that ensured better engine performance, lead had to be added. The health problems associated with lead in gasoline were known in the United States as early as the 1920s, but it has continued to be added.
The last
The last countries to use lead were North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan, which had stopped the sale in 2016. There were only Iraq, Yemen and Algeria left, which one after another also sold them. Leaded gasoline is still used in general aviation (tourism) aircraft.
August 31, 2021 (change August 31, 2021 | 12:09 pm)
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