Lead concentrations and isotope ratios in street dust in major cities in Greece in relation to the use of lead in petrol

Until recently, the most important source of environmental lead pollution in cities was thought to come from the combustion of leaded petrol. A simple way to monitor the extent of this phenomenon, used in a number of studies in the past, has been to measure lead levels in street dust. Nowadays, it would be expected that lead concentrations in urban dust would have decreased from earlier values, following the progressive reduction of lead in petrol over the past few years, and this hypothesis has recently been confirmed in Manchester, UK. The object of the present work is to determine levels of lead pollution in cities in Greece on 1997 and, if possible, to discover whether similar reductions in lead concentrations have occurred there also. Surveys have been conducted in Thessaloniki, Athens and Piraeus. Samples of roadside dust were collected from streets (categorised by traffic density), national gardens and school playgrounds, and lead was extracted by digestion with concentrated nitric acid. Lead concentrations were determined by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry and lead isotope ratios measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Results for Thessaloniki showed that mean lead concentrations in all categories of location are similar to present levels in Manchester. Further, lead concentrations in dust in the busiest streets in Thessaloniki have fallen by about 55% since a previous study 17 years ago. In Athens and Piraeus, the lead levels in street dust are much higher and significant differences were observed between the various types of street. In particular, it was observed that lead levels in school playgrounds in these two cities were much higher than in similar locations in Thessaloniki and Manchester, with a possible hazard to children. Isotope ratio measurements showed that Thessalonikiʹs lead is isotopically distinct from that found in Athens and Piraeus, which presumably reflects differences in sources of supply.