THE REAL REASON
THE LEAD WAS REMOVED
WHAT WE WERE TOLD
Lead is bad! It is bad for our health, and bad for the health of our kids! Having our cars burn petrol with lead in it, expelling the unburnt particles into the atmosphere, seems like it would be a bad thing, so the government told us they would do something about it; they would ban lead in petrol and introduce a new unleaded petrol. Oh yes, and to run this new petrol, cars would need to be fitted with something called a catalytic converter. But is that really what happened? No it wasn't!
THE REAL REASON
We were told that we had to have catalytic converters fitted to our cars so that we could remove the lead from our petrol. In fact, the reverse was true! We had to remove the lead from our petrol so that we could fit catalytic converters! Now, before you get too annoyed at the authorities telling us lies, there was nothing sinister about this; they were still acting in the best interests of our health, but lead wasn't the problem! Of course lead is bad, but studies had shown that the lead that was being breathed in from the atmosphere didn't, for the most part, come from cars. And even the lead particles that did come from cars were not easily absorbed by the body. No, the main problem was all the other nasties that were coming out of our car exhausts! Nitric oxides, carbon monoxide, and unburnt fuel were the real concerns; these were the emissions that were harmful to our health! In other countries, such as the U.S. etc, these emissions had become such a problem that even the public was crying out for something to be done. The answer was to fit catalytic converters to the exhausts. Catalytic converters filtered out much of these harmful emissions. The only thing was, the converters are virtually destroyed by lead! So lead had to be removed from the petrol so that we could have these converters fitted to our cars. That was the real reason we went unleaded!
SO WHY THE DECEPTION? Why did they tell us it was about lead rather than fitting catalytic converters? Well, I think it has something to do with the way the Australian motoring public had reacted to previous anti-pollution measures. Eleven years earlier, in 1975, the government had legislated to reduce exhaust emissions from our cars. Australian Design Rule 27A required certain anti-pollution equipment to be fitted to all new cars to reduce exhaust emissions. But the general public's reaction to this was not overly positive! It wasn't that we were totally uncaring for the environment, it was due to the effect this equipment had on our cars. While different manufacturers handled the implementation of this equipment with varying degrees of success, it was true that all new cars suffered some effects as a result of this new equipment. Initially, most cars suffered a loss of performance, although as time went on, most problems were overcome, and performance was restored to pre-ADR27A standards. Still, a thriving back-yard industry flourished where certain mechanics would re-route a few hoses, or modify the carburettor, etc. to remove this equipment. So I suppose the authorites thought that if they said that they were going to require all new cars to be fitted with a big expensive filter device on the exhaust as a further means of reducing pollution, the public reaction wouldn't be too encouraging! It probably seemed better to convince us that we should remove lead from our petrol, and then say that the fitting of catalytic converters was part of that move!
Now you know why we removed lead from our petrol, click on the old car at the left to find out about THE PROBLEMS WITH REMOVING THE LEAD
Click on the car here to go to the Main Page
