Aug 25

REC Alpha Pure: Leading the solar industry to a more sustainable future

Some readers may be too young to remember, but others will not think it was too long ago that there was a great campaign and worldwide effort to remove lead content from everyday materials such as paint, fuel, water pipes and even pencils!

All the same, we should be grateful and rightly proud of achieving the changes since the 1980s that cut the use of and exposure to lead in our daily lives. That said, lead is a commonly found element in the environment and cutting it out of our lives completely is practically impossible.

Why the drive to cut lead?
Lead is a toxic heavy metal that is soluble in certain environments. Its toxicity to humans and animals has long been known making it a key topic for environmental protection for many years. The high presence of lead in an organism can lead to decreased growth and reproduction and cause neurological effects in vertebrates, including brain damage and behavioral problems.

While you are not going to sit down and eat a plate of lead for your evening meal, the danger comes from inadvertent ingestion via our food and drink. Whereas the inhaling of particles in the air or from leaded paint flakes was a major cause of lead poisoning a few decades ago, nowadays, the main danger is through lead making its way into soils and sediments and then into our food, or through the direct discharge of waste from industrial activities into water bodies.