It’s one of the top three hazardous wastes on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list, and there’s a very good chance you’re driving around with it.


It’s lead, and a low estimate figures that about 10 percent of the 65,000 tons of lead wheel weights in use across America go flying off rims and into gutters and ditches.

And, according to the DeadWeight team, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has not yet added it to its list of concerns.

But of all the parts that make up a car, van or truck, wheel weights probably don’t rank high in motorist awareness. And government agencies seem more preoccupied with the lead paint used in toys.

“No one seems to care,” seventh-grader Jathan Kron said.

Kron and classmates Andrea Mundell, Justin Roth and Brennan Nelson make up the team focused on ridding the state of this particular source of lead and asking tire dealers to switch to alternative metals, such as steel, aluminum or copper.

Steel is the top alternative because it is the densest, but it also costs twice as much as lead. That’s about 20 cents per weight, compared to a dime for lead. While that may not seem like much, the DeadWeight team found that of 20 or so area tire dealers, one used as few as eight but more used more like 75 wheel weights a week. One of the largest dealers uses 1,500 wheel weights a week.

Some tire dealers told the team that the cost worried them, Roth said, but many said they would consider using another metal.

The seventh-graders asked each tire dealer what types of wheel weights were used, if they knew of alternatives, if they would switch voluntarily and what they do with wheel weights they take off old tires. Two of the dealers refused to cooperate.

Of the tire dealers who participated in the survey, some of them confessed that they did not know the answers to some of the questions and called managers to find out.

The team plans to re-survey the tire dealers to see if any change practices.

Lead wheel weights in 2005 were banned by the European Union and are currently being phased out in California, Minnesota, Vermont, Japan and Korea. Chysler Corp., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and B.F. Goodrich are all phasing out lead wheel weights.

The team, which is entering their findings into the annual eCybermission contest, is not content to only use the findings of others. They have scoured the streets to find wheel weights and conducted their own analysis to test for lead. Then, working with the University of Iowa Ankeny Hygienic Laboratory, they looked at the effects of distilled water, a salt-sand mixture, rain water and vinegar on the lead weights and found they formed various toxic compounds.

When lead degrades and forms certain compounds like lead acetate and enters the body, it can cause learning and behavior problems, said Nelson.

“It can damage the brain and kidney and other organs,” he said.

The team also found that people who handle lead are three times more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Some lead compounds form a weak solution naturally.

“But there are things man has done to raise those levels,” Kron said.

Lead wheel weights have been used since the 1930s. The National Lead Free Wheel Weight Initiative of the EPA encourages the voluntary phase-out of lead wheel weights and the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Postal Service and General Services Administration have aligned their practices with it.

“We’re going green,” Roth said. “And lots of people want to do that.”