The petrol that was poisoning children

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The UK was one of the first in Europe to declare it would ban lead from petrol after a successful campaign showing it was poisoning children and leaving them permanently brain damaged. But it took until the year 2000 to finally remove leaded petrol from sale. Lead was first added to petrol in the 1920s to make the fuel run more efficiently. The latest figures show only three countries worldwide still sell leaded petrol. Claire Bowes spoke to Dr Robin Russell Jones from the "Campaign for Lead Free Air" about the battle to show that lead from petrol was dangerous.

(Photo: a petrol pump in the UK. Credit: Dr Robin Russell-Jones)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds. Choosing what to
0:32.1	watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:36.5	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:41.5	telly we share what we've been watching.
0:43.7	Cladie Aide!
0:45.7	Loads of games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:48.2	Lovely.
0:49.0	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:51.2	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:54.7	searching and a lot more watching listen on BBC sounds.
1:00.3	Hello and thanks for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with
1:08.9	me Claire Bose.
1:11.0	In the year 2000 the European Union finally banned all its member states from selling
1:16.6	leaded petrol. It came years after it had been banned in Japan, the US and Canada because of concerns over children's health.
1:25.0	I've been speaking to the leader of the campaign against Ledin petrol in the UK
	...

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