UN: Leaded fuel to be gone by 2014

[October 28, 2011]  UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations Environmental Program says that leaded gasoline will be eradicated globally in a year or two.

Leaded gasoline, once sold at U.S. pumps as "regular" fuel, still sells in small amounts in six nations. Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, North Korea, Myanmar and Yemen are expected to complete the transition by 2014.

A new independent study finds that the elimination of leaded gasoline has lowered lead-in-blood levels by up to 90 percent and prevented the annual premature deaths of more than 1.2 million people.

Leaded gasoline first appeared in the 1920s. The effort to eliminate it in the U.S. began in the 1970s and culminated in a 1986 ban.

In 2002, the Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles began a final push to eradicate leaded fuel.

[Associated Press]

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