Alternative to Lead in car Batteries

[Thecla]

TL;DR

Mid 20th century alternauves to lead in car batteries

ANew york Times had an article about car battery recycling poisoning children and described lead as an essential component of a car battery I knoow inthe 21st century there are new technologies for batteries,but I was wondering if in the 19440s or 1950s, when the dangers of lead were known,were the other metals tha can replace lead. Why is lead so important?

 

[DaveC426913]

What has your research into the question turned up?

Did you try googling "why is lead better than other elements in batteries?" or "what could preplace lead?"

 

[256bits]

The Wiki article is much better than that virtue signaling NY Times article if you want to learn about lead poisoning since antiquity.
The NY Times might have referred to why lead recycling has been transferred to the third world, and why those governments do not have more strict control ensuring their citizens health

TL;DR: Mid 20th century alternauves to lead in car batteries

in the 19440s or 1950s, when the dangers of lead were known

Dangers were known much earlier, when there was no such thing as a car battery, but people still kept using it. Pretty white faces and white powdered wigs amongst the aristocracy led them to be more lead poisoned than the poorer regular folk.
More stringent regulations developed in the 70's when peoples began to be more concerned about the environment and what pollution is doing to the planet and us. ( Western viewpoint )

I am not sure how polluting recycling of lead acid batteries is, in relation to all the other sources of lead from human products, but the recycling plant has the obvious feature that environmental and health problems are localized and can be measured in the surrounding air, soil, the living organisms and cannot be denied.