[londons_explore]

I don't really want lead in my plastic or my furniture either...

In fact, I think there would be a good case for simply banning all mining of lead. Nearly all remaining uses of it (bullets, roof flashing, counterweights, car batteries) seem to still have a pretty high risk of contamination of either the environment or the workers who make or recycle products.

[athenot]

It's used medically, for example for nurses and doctors who work with radioactive tracers; they wear big aprons with lead in it which absorb any radiation that would be ok once in a while but that you don't want exposed to every single day at work.

[londons_explore]

True - but lead doesn't actually perform much better than say steel, per unit weight.