Environmental Lead Contamination:: A Metaphor for Destructive Industrial Practices; Lead Abatement: A Model for Ineffective Societal Responses

Abstract

Aims to: familiarize the audience with the potentially serious consequences of exposure to lead and ways of preventing them; facilitate understanding of how massive environmental contamination with lead occurred, and is still happening, with the expectation that this knowledge will be useful in designing strategies to reduce environmental contamination with lead and other toxic substances, in the future; emphasizes the relevance of lead to the subject‐matter of virtually every department in schools of arts and sciences in anticipation that some instructors will incorporate this information into their respective courses to increase their students′ awareness of this topic. Discusses some of the properties and uses of lead and its compounds and then indicates its ubiquitous presence in air, water, soil, dust and food. Considers some effects of exposure to lead and describes some pivotal contributions of various researchers. Explores the role of lead in history, in literature and in art. Briefly surveys occupational exposure to lead in the USA and elsewhere. Describes the reasons for, and consequences of, lead in petrol and in paint. Summarizes an outstanding paper on the topic of values and lead. Finally, based on an examination of a portion of the voluminous literature on lead, offers some opinions on this subject.

Citation

Kendler, B.S. (1994), "Environmental Lead Contamination:: A Metaphor for Destructive Industrial Practices; Lead Abatement: A Model for Ineffective Societal Responses", Structural Survey, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 13-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/02630809410055719