|
Q: How many countries still sell leaded petrol /
leaded gasoline? A: Three - Algeria, Iraq and Yemen
By Elizabeth O'Brien, Lead Advisor, The LEAD Group Inc
A US doctor working at a US Clinic for Refugees emailed The
LEAD Group to ask:
Q: Do Afghanistan, Burma, N Korea,
Algeria, Iraq and Yemen still use leaded gasoline? We resettle families from
all of these areas and I am interested in learning more about potential
exposures.
Here’s my answer:
A: Leaded gasoline is still sold in Algeria,
Iraq and Yemen because a US company needs the profits
Dear doctor,
yes, sadly, tragically, the latest information from the
United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP's) Partnership for Cleaner Fuels
and Vehicles (PCFV) - of which I am a Partner - is that leaded gasoline is
still sold in 3 of these countries, along with unleaded gasoline:- Algeria,
Iraq and Yemen. See the map at:
http://www.unep.org/Transport/new/PCFV/pdf/Maps_Matrices/world/lead/MapWorldLead_January2016.pdf - which
is accessible via http://www.unep.org/transport/new/pcfv/
Worse still, up until 27 January 2016, that page (http://www.unep.org/transport/new/pcfv/)
linked to a World Map showing 6 countries still selling leaded petrol as at
April 2014 - which not only shows that leaded and unleaded gasoline were
available in Algeria, Iraq and Yemen, but also shows that ONLY leaded gasoline
was available in Afghanistan, Myanmar and North Korea (presumably up to the end
of January 2016).
The PCFV website noted at the time, in The Lead Campaign
- linking to the 2014 World Map (undated but probably written in April 2014):
"Today only 6 countries still use leaded petrol, versus
the 82 countries that were leaded when the PCFV was formed in 2002. The PCFV
supports programs in these 6 remaining countries, ensuring that a global
elimination is within reach."
The original UNEP PCFV target date for the total elimination
of leaded gasoline globally was 2008, according to the PCFV booklet Target
2008- Global Elimination of Leaded Petrol - published early 2008.
So, being half-way through the final 6 leaded gasoline
countries nearly 8 years on, is not something the US-incorporated
UK-manufacturing lead additive manufacturer can be proud of, and certainly, I
am ashamed to be a
Partner of a UN Partnership (which includes the US EPA)
which appears to
wield such little influence over a US company (Innospec).
These 6 countries were the last-remaining leaded gasoline
selling countries also as at January 2012 and January 2011, so, in other words,
every other country in the world went unleaded more than FIVE years before
these final customers of "responsible tetraethyl lead supply". In the
three years since January 2008 in fact, 10 other countries finally went
unleaded.
The best effort I ever made to get Innospec to stop making
the lead gasoline additive (tetra-ethyl lead or TEL for short) was to complain
about the company to the OECD. In the resulting statement of Innospec's refusal
to engage in negotiations on the matter with my charity (The LEAD Group),
Innospec stated that they had "never supplied TEL to Afghanistan, North
Korea or Burma", which I took to mean that they admitted they were
supplying TEL to Algeria, Iraq and Yemen (as we had claimed in our complaint,
based on the UNEP PCFV information and the fact that Innospec stated on their
website that they were the only manufacturer of TEL in the world). Today, still
states:
"Octane Additives
Responsible tetraethyl lead supply and stewardship
Our Octane Additives business is the world’s only
manufacturer of tetraethyl lead (TEL) products."
[URL: http://www.innospecinc.com/our-markets/octane-additives/octane-additives ]
Innospec's Annual Report (for 2015 calendar year) states:
"Decline in our TEL business
The remaining sales of the Octane Additives business are now
concentrated to one remaining customer. When this customer chooses to cease
using TEL as an octane enhancer then the Company’s future operating income and
cash flows from operating activities would be materially impacted."
[URL: http://www.envisionreports.com/IOSP/2016/14222JA16E/default.htm#p=1&c=0&v=1?voting=false ]
Have the words "responsible" and
"stewardship" ever been so misused as in the phrase: "Responsible
tetraethyl lead supply and stewardship"?
Thus, I am encouraged by the January 2016 PCFV "WORLD
MAP: Leaded Petrol Phase-out: Global Status January 2016" [showing 3
countries where leaded gasoline is still used for road vehicles; Dual (leaded
and unleaded) Countries: Iraq, Algeria, Yemen] to approach Innospec again, and
I would encourage you to also write to them (and to your federal environment
minister and congressional representative) with your concerns about the likely
lead exposure of the refugees (and long-term costs to the US health and education
and criminal justice systems) coming from those countries to the USA.
To write to Innospec you can "Send Message" to:
Innospec Fuel Specialties LLC
8310 South Valley Highway
Suite 350
Englewood
Colorado 80112
USA
Tel: +1 303 792 5554
via the Colorado tab on the map at http://www.innospecinc.com/get-in-touch
Such refugees (of all ages) require blood lead monitoring
and blood pressure monitoring from the moment they arrive in the USA, and then
periodically until their blood lead levels fall at least below 5 micrograms per
decilitre, in order to give them some hope of having a healthy brain and
non-elevated blood pressure for the rest of their lives. This monitoring should
identify those refugees who had lead exposure from, for instance, roadside
sales of leaded gasoline, siphoning of leaded gasoline from containers into
vehicle fuel tanks, (gasoline service stations are not common in these
countries) breathing the air around dense traffic, as well as all the other
usual lead sources such as shooting leaded ammunition and living near or
working in lead mines, smelters, lead acid battery recycling operations (which
often are small-scale and involve collection of batteries by children and breaking
of batteries and melting of the lead in homes or residential yards or on the
footpath) or metal scrap recycling/car recycling/e-waste recycling (also often
done by children).
All the best in your important work. I'm very happy to
web-publish cases or blood lead or blood pressure results from your Refugee
clinic if you'd like to supply them.
Yours Sincerely
Elizabeth O'Brien, Lead Advisor
|
