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Australia's
Dirty Trade
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Image:
Elizabeth O’Brien wearing her t-shirt: “The LEAD Group calls for
a UK export ban on alkyl lead for road-use petrol" as worn at
6GPM in Beijing 2008.
Photo: Alex Jewson.
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At the United Nations Partnership
for Cleaner Fuels and Vehicles (PCFV) 6th Global Partnership Meeting (6GPM),
in Beijing in April 2008, Elizabeth O’Brien called for a ban on the sale of
the lead additive used to make leaded petrol for road vehicles.
The
President of The LEAD Group recently told LEAD Action News that it
was ‘scandalous’ that the British government still allowed the
leaded petrol additive for motor vehicles to be manufactured in
their country and exported to some 16 developing nations like Burma,
Jordan and North Korea. Ms O’Brien added that “Alkyl lead [tetra
ethyl lead] is an organic lead compound added to unleaded petrol to
make leaded petrol. What makes things worse is that Australia, it
seems, is the source of the lead used to make the leaded petrol
additive.” Ms O’Brien went on to say “that with one stroke of
the legislator’s pen the Commonwealth could stop Austral ian
companies being party to this pernicious trade which poisons a
quarter of a billion people each year.”
The
international company Innospec
Inc states the following on its website: ‘Our octane additives
business is the world’s only producer of tetra ethyl lead (TEL).
For over 60 years we have been producing this highly effective
octane enhancer for automotive and aviation gasoline’. Also see Time
for ban on export of Australian lead for petrol
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