Historical lead from petrol still poisons London’s air 20 years after its ban

Almost half of the lead polluting London’s air comes from leaded petrol that fuelled cars more than half a century ago, a study has found. Although leaded petrol was banned in 1999, the toxic metal has stuck around in the form of lead-laden dust on the UK capital’s streets, kicked up by wind and traffic.

Lead emissions have now dropped below the legal limit, but there’s still around 50 times more lead in the air than the natural background level – a situation study leader Dominik Weiss from Imperial College London likens to passive smoking. No amount is likely to be completely safe. ‘We have to live with that long-term exposure,’ he says.