The Swedish Government has taken
the lead in European efforts to regulate lead in the future.
The Swedish Ministry of the Environment recently issued a report
entitled "Towards a Sustainable Chemicals Policy."
The Ministry advocates a policy, which calls for the elimination
of lead, mercury, and cadmium, as well as any substance that may
bioaccumulate or may give rise to serious effects on health or
the environment. While the report does not carry the weight of
law, it could lead to new regulations in the long term. The report
listed its lead-free implementation goal year as 2007.
A similar proposal has been produced
in Holland with a much stricter timetable. The Danish plan calls
for the ban on importation of any product with lead or lead compounds.
Elsewhere, the issue is alive but much more industry specific.
For instance, Canada is concentrating solely on the reduction
of lead in consumer products, even more specifically focused on
children's toys. Their goal is to decrease lead in consumer products
to less than 15 ppm. In Japan the focus in on the automobile
industry. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry has
requested that automakers decrease the amount of lead in cars
by 50% by the year 2000.
The push for sunset provisions with
regard to lead does not stop at individual countries. The European
Union is considering several lead-specific initiatives and the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe is toying with an
all-encompassing metals protocol.
By way of comparison, the United
States Centers for Disease Control recently reported that, even
without such strict regulations, exposure to lead has decreased
significantly. This may be due in no small part to US government
regulatory efforts that focus on risk-based action and not across-the-board
regulatory behavior.
