Lead wheel weights to be dropped in California by end of 2009
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Lead wheel weights, which are used to balance vehicle tires, will be phased out in California by the end of 2009 under a court settlement this week with environmentalists, according to an article today by Times staff writer Martin Zimmerman.
In the suit filed in May by the Center for Environmental Health against Chrysler and three lead wheel weight makers, the group said the car parts threatened drinking water. Environmentalists said wheel weights falling off vehicles release 500,000 pounds of lead into the environment. The wheel weights are ‘ground down by passing vehicles and the lead can find its way into drinking water supplies’ and landfills where they can leach into groundwater, the article says.
Zimmerman says some observers see the settlement as a first step toward a broader ban on the wheel weights.
Lead is a highly toxic metal that can cause brain damage and other nervous-system disorders, especially in young children. It has been used to make wheel weights for decades because it is cheap and heavy, allowing mechanics to use relatively small weights when balancing tires. (Unbalanced tires can wear unevenly and pose a safety hazard.)
The lead wheel weights were banned in the European Union in 2005 and are being phased out in Japan and South Korea, according to the article. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is sponsoring a voluntary initiative to reduce the use of lead wheel weights but has not banned them, the article says.
-- Tami Abdollah