Continuing without a break:To his great credit, Patterson never wavered of buckled. Eventually his efforts led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and finally to the removal from sale of all leaded gasoline in the United States in 1986. Almost immediately lead levels in the blood of Americans fell by 80 percent. But because lead is forever, those of us alive today have about 625 times more lead in our blood than people did a century ago. The amount of lead in the atmosphere also continues to grow, quite legally, by about a hundred thousand metric conts a year, mostly from mining, smelting, and industrial activities. The United States also banned lead in indoor paint, "forty-four years after most of Europe," as McGrayne notes. Remarkably, considering its startling toxicity, lead solder was not removed from American food containers until 1993.
As for the Ethyl Corporation, it's still going strong, though GM, Standard Oil, and Du Pont no longer have stakes in the company. (They sold out to a company called Albemarle Paper in 1962.) According to McGrayne, as late as February 2001 Ethyl continued to contend "that research has failed to show that leaded gasoline poses a threat to human health or the environment." On its website, a history of the company makes no mention of lead-or indeed of Thomas Midgley-but simply refers to the original product as containing "a certain combination of chemicals."
Ethyl no longer makes leaded gasoline, although, according to its 2001 company accounts, tetraethyl lead (or TEL as it calls it) still accounted for $25.1 million in sales in 2000 (out of overall sales of $795 million), up from $24.1 million in 1999, but down from $117 million in 1998. In its report the company stated its determination to "maximize the cash generated by TEL as its usage continues to phase down around the world." Ethyl markets TEL through an agreement with Associated Octel of England.
As for the other scourge left to us by Thomas Midgley, cholorfluorocarbons, they were banned in 1974 in the United States, but they are tenacious little devils and any that you loosed into the atmosphere before then (in your deodorants and hair sprays, for instance) will almost certainly be around and devouring ozone long after you have shuffled off. Worse, we are still introducing huge amounts of CFCs into the atmosphere every year. According to Wayne Biddle, 60 million pounds of the stuff, worth $1.5 billion, still finds its way onto the market every year. So who is making it? We are-that is to say, many of our large corporations are still making it at their plants overseas. It will not be banned in Third World countries until 2010. Earlier this decade, people in sub-Saharan Africa were afraid of efforts there to get them to switch from leaded gasoline to unleaded: some thought it was the work of witch doctors; others figured it was a secret chemical plot to exterminate them; others just didn't want to change from what they were used to.
As for the Ethyl Corporation, it's still going strong, though GM, Standard Oil, and Du Pont no longer have stakes in the company. (They sold out to a company called Albemarle Paper in 1962.) According to McGrayne, as late as February 2001 Ethyl continued to contend "that research has failed to show that leaded gasoline poses a threat to human health or the environment." On its website, a history of the company makes no mention of lead-or indeed of Thomas Midgley-but simply refers to the original product as containing "a certain combination of chemicals."
Ethyl no longer makes leaded gasoline, although, according to its 2001 company accounts, tetraethyl lead (or TEL as it calls it) still accounted for $25.1 million in sales in 2000 (out of overall sales of $795 million), up from $24.1 million in 1999, but down from $117 million in 1998. In its report the company stated its determination to "maximize the cash generated by TEL as its usage continues to phase down around the world." Ethyl markets TEL through an agreement with Associated Octel of England.
As for the other scourge left to us by Thomas Midgley, cholorfluorocarbons, they were banned in 1974 in the United States, but they are tenacious little devils and any that you loosed into the atmosphere before then (in your deodorants and hair sprays, for instance) will almost certainly be around and devouring ozone long after you have shuffled off. Worse, we are still introducing huge amounts of CFCs into the atmosphere every year. According to Wayne Biddle, 60 million pounds of the stuff, worth $1.5 billion, still finds its way onto the market every year. So who is making it? We are-that is to say, many of our large corporations are still making it at their plants overseas. It will not be banned in Third World countries until 2010.
Earlier this decade, people in sub-Saharan Africa were afraid of efforts there to get them to switch from leaded gasoline to unleaded: some thought it was the work of witch doctors; others figured it was a secret chemical plot to exterminate them; others just didn't want to change from what they were used to.
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