Lead wheel weights meet their demise in California
Environmentally-friendly California is putting an end to lead balancing weights on wheels and tires. The heavy metal neurotoxin is polluting the state's ground water supplies, according to the Center for Environmental Health. The group claims that more than 500,000 pounds of lead weights are inadvertently flung off wheels each year, making it the state's leading cause of environmental lead contamination. Under a court settlement approved this week, Chrysler and the three largest lead weight wheel manufacturers will all phase out lead in wheel weights by the end of 2009. While California is taking the initiative in this country, we are still years behind the European Union, which banned lead weights in 2005. With lead on the chopping block, future wheel weights will be made from either steel or zinc alloy. Those metal weights are larger and more expensive to produce than lead, but much safer for Mother Earth.
[Source: Business Week]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
CrypticJ 6:36PM (8/22/2008)
Your life will be inconvenienced that much more, but just think of all the baby penguins you'll be saving!
Seriously though, I never knew those things were made of lead, but the thought of larger, more expensive replacements hardly seems like a fix to me.
On the flip side, long live the Lead Sleds of the road!
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Benfolio 6:47PM (8/22/2008)
Actually the 3M product I mentioned is no more expensive than 90% of the lead weights we use in the shop where I work, espeically the stick on weights that go on the inside of the wheel.
And it's only SLIGHTLY bigger (but thinner in height), but is a dark gray in color.
BUT, most new cars only have a provision for weights on the inside of the wheel. Very few have them clipped onto the outside lip anymore.
Benfolio 6:36PM (8/22/2008)
Doesn't suprise me.
3M makes a nice biodegradeable wheel weight strip (like adhesive weights) that can be used on the inside or outside of the tire, is cut to size/weight, and is soft and pliable enough to mould it to fit any wheel contour.
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Automotive/OEM/Products/Chassis/Wheel_Balance/
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Flashpoint 7:17PM (8/22/2008)
LEAD, Mercury and Iodine are elements we should take very seriously. I'm just glad there aren't jackasses around here claiming that the removal of the weights is "ultra left - liberal environmentalism"
You know, the people who don't believe in Global Warming, pollution or energy waste.
EskimoPie 7:47PM (8/22/2008)
Bah! Damn ultra left - liberal environmentalism Hippies!
TwinTurbo3000GT 8:38PM (8/22/2008)
They fall off too easily. I've tried them 3 times. Now i have some nice lead ones...been on for 2 years with no issues.
THINK! 9:12PM (8/22/2008)
Hey Flashpoint,
People who BELIEVE are the jackasses who get us into trouble. They like to blow things up, burn witches, crash airplanes, withhold medical treatment, etc.
Give me people who THINK any day.
I THINK replacing lead weights with something else is not a bad idea.
At least until I come out with my patent-pending URANUT(TM) depleted uranium weights. ;)
tankd0g 10:47AM (8/23/2008)
Biodegradable? Are they serious?
MONTE 2:17AM (8/24/2008)
Here is an idea, don't eat the damn wheel weights if you're worried about lead poisoning. Since CA is full of a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals that have nothing better to do than decide what is best for ME, luckily I live about 200yrds from the CA border. At least here I can still get wheel weights for melting down and casting into affordable bullets for reloading my guns I have the right to own.
Thank you CA for saving the World, at the expense of ruining your's and everyone else's economy at all costs. Stupid hippies.
tekdemon 6:49PM (8/22/2008)
Considering how cheap zinc alloy (or really even a small chunk of steel) is it's kind of insane that they were still made out of lead...I had just assumed it was steel.
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david 7:18PM (8/22/2008)
Density my friend, density.
Seoultrain 6:43AM (8/23/2008)
Yep, the only alternative (from a physical property standpoint) would be pure gold. Yeah, lead is pretty amazing in terms of cheapness and density. There's a reason why it's still widely used despite its toxicity.
geocaldwell 6:53PM (8/22/2008)
Standard enviro hype lets do some math. If that amount of lead was comming off each year that would amount to a third of all cars registered in CA have all four wheel out of balance. 23.4 million registered cars in 2000 so i round up to 30 million for 8 years difference. 500000lbs = 8,000,000 oz of lead. On average most tires need 1 to 1.5 oz to balance I will round up to 2. 8oz per car with 30,000,000 million cars in one year. Now granted I came up with these numbers in 15 min if I am wrong please forgive me. I think this is a load of bull.
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Benfolio 6:58PM (8/22/2008)
Not to mention, in my ten years in the buisness I have maybe seen a HANDFUL of cars who's weight's were 'inadvertantly flung off'.
It just doesn't happen.
Now I DO AGREE that maybe the businesses removing the weights to replance tires or rebalance wheels are not disposing of them properly, that may very well be the case and that makes that number look alot better.
Not right, but better.
Joce03 8:49PM (8/22/2008)
At the shop where I worked, all out used balancing weights were thrown in the "regular" garbage. Odds are good that that's what happens to them in most shops. So they end up in dumps.
Lead poisoning is a serious problem, but maybe they have the wrong source. Those weights are a pain to take off with the proper tool. I can't imagine they fly off very often!
tankd0g 10:58AM (8/23/2008)
Businesses might have been tossing them in the garbage in the past but with the price of lead these days, any place doing any kind of volume is saving them for the local scrap metal dealer. Hell if there's really thousands of pounds of weights on California roadways, someone could be making a good living off collecting them.
PJ 8:09PM (8/23/2008)
Reducing lead... yes, that sounds like it could be associated with liberal politics.. I must HATE it!
I've got news for you, responding to news only with polarized partisan knee-jerk reflexes is a surefire way to keep your government happy. Keeps you from straining your gray matter :/
knifetramp 7:23PM (8/22/2008)
"Now I DO AGREE that maybe the businesses removing the weights to replance tires or rebalance wheels are not disposing of them properly, that may very well be the case and that makes that number look alot better."
I think you are 100% correct on all counts.
MachinaDC5 6:59PM (8/22/2008)
So... I should stop eating them then? Damn... My wheels were off balance, but I've never been more satiated.
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Benfolio 7:01PM (8/22/2008)
Someone hit me upside the head for typing "weight's".
Got punctuation happy. :)
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