converting a re-issue Bassman

[Enzo]

Fishing? I would have thought lead bullets would out number fishing weights in the USA.

Leaded gasoline was banned 20 years ago. 40 years ago they started requiring new cars be fueled by lead-free gas. So its sales were diminishing anyway. But prior to that, lead from car exhausts was the major source of lead in the environment. SOme urban soils were toxic from it, and kids were playing in the stuff. gas pumps used to say leaded and unleaded. Every car that drove by was spewing lead on your lawn.

[Chuck H]

Ok.. Lead "pollution" was too vague and "North America" was too broad. Gasoline would definitely rule there. I was speaking of non atomized lead uses. In that case, in western North America it's not bullets, not paint chips and certainly not solder. It's fishing weights in the rivers. Recreational fishermen have been dropping downrigger lead at a rate of a couple of bucket loads per boat every year for many decades. Anyone that lives near a big river or the ocean can go into a tackle store and see the balls from a few ounces up to several pounds in big boxes. All destined for the aquatic floor of fishing lanes. Diver reports are really quite awful.

[wyatt]

But I can see where some clear thinking environmentalist recognized the problem infiltrating our land fills with all the disposable electronic appliances that have been, and are even more so, common to our culture

I thought we fixed our e-waste pollution problem by shipping it off to the third world to poison people in freer, less-regulated markets.

Been a while since I've been reminded of the fishing weight issue. Interesting that they ban lead buckshot but still sell those fishing weights. Think of all the people biting off the end of a hand-tied knot after touching all that lead. Even if they don't lose that weight, it's still being dipped into the water supply time and time again.

[eschertron]

I thought we fixed our e-waste pollution problem by shipping it off to the third world to poison people in freer, less-regulated markets.

Been a while since I've been reminded of the fishing weight issue. Interesting that they ban lead buckshot but still sell those fishing weights. Think of all the people biting off the end of a hand-tied knot after touching all that lead. Even if they don't lose that weight, it's still being dipped into the water supply time and time again.

IIRC lead exposure is developmentally-related. So by the time someone's old enough to handle their own tackle, the lead poisoning danger is less severe. :deadpan: