Leading petrol is no longer officially used in the world, the UN declares

Algeria, the last country to use the fuel, ran out of stock last month, almost a century after the first warning of the toxic effects of leaded petrol, UNEP said.

These fuel marks are missing. “The End of a Toxic Era “, Tandile Chinyavanhu, who is in charge of the Greenpeace campaigns on climate and energy in Africa, underlined in a press release.

“It clearly shows that if we can get rid of one of the most dangerous polluting fuels of the 20th century, we can completely eliminate all fossil fuels.”

Thandile Chinyavanhu, Greenpeace campaigner

To Francispo

Twenty years ago, despite leading studies in more than a hundred countries, scientific studies pointed to premature deaths as the cause of poor health and air and soil pollution. The first warning was issued in 1924, when dozens of workers were hospitalized and five were reported to have suffered a seizure at a treatment plant in New Jersey (USA). However, until the 1970s, almost all gasoline sold in the world contained lead.

When the UNEP began its campaign in 2002, many powers, such as the United States, China and India, had already stopped using the fuel. But it was also widely used in low-income countries.

In 2016, after North Korea, Burma and Afghanistan stopped leading petrol sales, only a handful of countries operated gas stations supplying this fuel. Algeria was finally liberated, following Iraq and Yemen.