Lead is a heavy metal that is common in our everyday environment. Historically it has been used in paints, pipes (including connectors/fittings), and gasoline among other places. Today, most industrial uses are limited to lead-acid batteries, a growing market. Lead is a known toxin for humans. Health effects range from mild health irritations and decreased fertility at low amounts, lower IQ and emotional/behavioral issues in milder amounts, and seizures, coma, and even death at higher amounts. ### Top exposure pathways (aka: sources of lead) include: - Paint - Soil - Dust (created by soil, paint, or emissions) - Water / Plumbing Lead may also be in toys, cosmetics, food containers, and other places, but the above are the top 4 pathways. Paint is generally recognized as the predominant source of lead. People talk quite a bit about lead in water, in part because of the crisis in Flint Michigan. Soil is a pathway that gets less attention; however, there is growing evidence that soil -- and in particular the dust that gets kicked up -- is a significant source of lead. There are no safe levels of lead for humans; any amount is a bad amount. Lead is also bioaccumulate which means that it doesn't leave your body. Small amounts add up in your body over time. -------------------- ###Top Resources on PublicLab.org Related to this Topic - [How to Test For Lead in your Environment](https://publiclab.org/notes/read_holman/04-11-2019/how-to-test-for-lead-in-your-environment) - [Evaluating Low-cost Lead Screening Products](https://publiclab.org/notes/read_holman/04-16-2019/evaluating-low-cost-lead-screening-products) - [Chemical/Analytical Methods Used When Testing for Lead](https://publiclab.org/notes/read_holman/12-12-2018/list-of-methods-for-lead-detection-monitoring) - [How much lead is legally allowed and what government agency regulates that? (link goes to CDC/ATSDR website. Scroll to Summary Table.)](https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=34&po=8) -------------------- ### Research Notes on PublicLab.org Related to this Topic [notes:lead!question:lead] ### Questions posted on PublicLab.org Related to this Topic [questions:lead] ...
| Author | Comment | Last activity | Moderation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ag8n | "As for what method can do soil, paint, water, etc. Edxrf has a big problem with water. Water absorbs xrays. You can get around this by evaporati..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| Ag8n | "As for what method can do soil, paint, water, etc. Edxrf has a big problem with water. Water absorbs xrays. You can get around this by evaporati..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| Ag8n | "As for difficulty: Worst is ICP- ME ICP-OES GFAA AS EDXRF Wet chemical Easiest Many of the wet chemical methods can only detect heavy metals as le..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| Ag8n | "Read- ICP-MS is the premier method.no doubt. But you pay for it. I'm second place is ICP-OES (ICP-optical emission spectrometry). Pretty much th..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| read_holman | "Thanks :) Some bumps here as I learn the quirks of the platform... So I just did delete a couple of the comments to clean up this thread. One of t..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| liz | "I believe you can delete your own duplicate comments, if not, however, and if you'd like me to (as site admin) just let me know and i can clean thi..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| read_holman | "Huh... Sorry about the duplicate questions. The page stalled on me and I didn't realize that the first one posted. (edit: I just deleted said dupli..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| liz | "Hey Read, your page is looking great! The new tags look good, and i added another one parent:lead so that people can kind of navigate through this ..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| read_holman | "Hi @liz -- Cool. The aggregate page (for lack of a better word) is super helpful! Seeing all the related content / questions now and will check tho..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| read_holman | "Awesome. Thanks " | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| liz | "I took my own advice and created publiclab.org/lead, linking to the Lead Data Collaborative at the top " | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| Ag8n | "I'd be happy to help. Give me some time to look it over. I've worked extensively with EDXRF, but mostly the desktop (read R&D) variety. Only..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| read_holman | "@Ag8n I'd love to pick your brain about the technologies. I am familiar with the general trends, but only bc I've read about them, have worked with..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| liz | "Excited that you might create a wiki page for "lead" ! You can create it by clicking the button on https://publiclab.org/tag/lead that says "Add on..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| Ag8n | "I've done a lot of lead testing. This was mostly by atomic absorption (AA), in an industrial situation. The specs have changed. The lead levels ..." | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| liz | "Hi @read_holman, I added the tag question:lead to this great question in order to link this to some previous postings and a bit of discussion. " | Read more » | over 5 years ago | |||
| zengirl2 | "For a project I was looking at toxins in water and read about sunflower stalks being used for this purpose. There was even a startup in NJ, but not..." | Read more » | about 6 years ago | |||
| gretchengehrke | "Hmm. This is surprising to me too. Iron-rich clay can readily adsorb arsenic under oxygen-rich conditions (this is actually the root of Bangladesh,..." | Read more » | about 6 years ago | |||
| stevie | "interesting! I've seen people using clay to filter water in Nicaragua, but I don't have an understanding of how that worked. " | Read more » | about 6 years ago | |||
| Ag8n | "I'm very surprised. I've spent many hours analyzing incoming raw material ( often times clays) usually for heavy metals. Clays are often the sour..." | Read more » | about 6 years ago |