Perhaps... I'd rather have the air clean than get rid of lead in solder. Simply based on another point mentioned in this thread, batteries are apparently contributing 80x as much lead to the environment as solder. So even after we go through this mess, there's really almost exactly the same amount of solder being dumped into the environment. The amount of lead being added to the environment by solder looks to be essentially statistical noise compared to other items.

Maybe the EU should outlaw batteries while they're at it. After all, they could apparently eliminate about 80% of the lead if they do that!

If we try hard enough, we can progress science and technology to the point that we're right back in the stone age. But dang it, we won't be "affecting" the environment anymore. :)

Regards,
Craig Steiner