There was an error finding data for one of the linked stories. (nid: 208586)

How Dangerous Is the Lead in Bullets?

Don't inhale.






If OSHA adopts more stringent standards, it would be just another step in the long incremental march toward recognizing lead's dangers. Over the past several decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lowered the blood lead level of concern in children from 60 µg/dL to 25 to 10 to its current 5, and the metal has largely vanished from gasoline, water pipes, tin cans, and paint.

That's great, but lead is an element, so it doesn't degrade or become less toxic over time. Old bullets (or paint or gas or any other cause) leach lead into the soil; from there the metal gets into groundwater and plants and the bodies of animals. The military has been cleaning up some 700 of its shooting ranges, and while that's not cheap, Kevin Drum's "America's Real Criminal Element: Lead" makes a compelling case that it's far less expensive than the costs that come with lead exposure—including violent crime, lower IQs, and ADHD.

In any case, the lessons learned from cleaning up firing ranges are relevant even if you have never owned a gun or live nowhere near a firing range. That's because soil lead is actually as ubiquitous of a public-health hazard as the better publicized problem of lead paint. If you live in a city, chances are your house is surrounded by soil with fairly high levels of lead. To find out more about the risk you face, read "Is There Lead in Your House?"—also in the January/February 2013 issue of Mother Jones.