Fuel Consumption

Assume the fuel consumption of your average car is about 10 L for every 100 km.

Since this average car travel 50 km each day, it uses

10 L / 100 km x 50 km / day = 5 L / day of leaded fuel.

So the total amount of leaded fuel that is used every day by all the cars is

5 L / day x 500 000 = 2 500 000 L / day.

In 1993, the maximum permissible amount of lead in fuel was 0.4 g/L. It has since been reduced to 0.15g/L in 1995, but we will use the 1993 figure as our estimate.

The maximum amount of lead in the exhaust emissions of our 500 000 cars is therefore

0.4 g / L x 2 500 000 L / day = 1 000 000 g / day.

Converting this to more manageable units, 1 000 000 g is equal to 1 000 kg, or 1 tonne. So the total lead emission from our cars is 1 tonne / day.

Continue with the estimation.

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