Leaded gasoline has finally reached the end of the road. Algeria - the last country where you could get it - halted sales of the highly toxic fuel last month, the U.N. says. Leaded gas has been blamed for a range of human health problems.
FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2010 file photo a view of a traffic jam in Algiers, Algeria. Leaded gasoline has finally reached the end of the road, the United Nations environment office said Monday, Aug. 30, 2021 after the last country in the world to use it stopped selling the highly toxic fuel.
Algeria stopped providing leaded gas last month, prompting the U.N. Environment Agency to declare the “official end” of its use in cars, which has been blamed for a wide range of human health problems. UNEP said studies showed leaded gas caused measurable intellectual impairment in children and millions of premature deaths.“The cost of environmental degradation is real,” said Andersen, citing what she described as a “very, very ballpark number” of $2.45 trillion in damage to the global economy prevented by the ban.