Notre Dame fire wakes the world up to dangers of lead dust

摘要

It took a blaze that nearly destroyed Paris' most famous cathedral to reveal a gap in global safety regulations forlead, a toxic building material found across many historic cities.After the Notre Dame fire in April spewed dozens of tons of toxic lead dust into the atmosphere in just a fewhours, Paris authorities discovered a problem with the city's public safety regulations: There was no threshold forthem to gauge how dangerous the potentially deadly pollution was from the dust that settled on the ground.Since then, the Associated Press has found this regulatory gap extends far beyond France. Officials in otherhistoric European capitals such as Rome and London, as well as U.S. EPA and the World Health Organization,also have no such outdoor lead dust hazard guidelines.