The presence and concentrations of Pb and Cr was determined in 236 road paints of various colours sampled from streets, highways, footways and carparks from eleven European countries. This study included 30 samples from Switzerland, about half of which contained lead.
A. Turner and M. Filella, Lead and chromium in European road paints. Environmental Pollution, 316, 120492 (2023). doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2022.120492
Plastics (n = 3880) were sampled from 39 beaches of ten Swiss lakes of varying sizes, hydrodynamics, and catchments, with a selection (n = 598) analysed for potentially hazardous (and regulated) chemical elements. Lead was detected in a third of the samples analysed (201) across all lakes, including 18 constructed of PVC, with concentrations ranging from about 6 to 35,000 ppm. All but four PVC objects contained Pb concentrations above 1000 ppm. Some black plastic firework casings, extremely abundant in some beaches of Lake Constance, also contained Pb.
M. Filella, J.C. Rodríguez-Murillo and A. Turner, Ubiquity of potentially hazardous chemical elements in plastics beached in Swiss lakes. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 193, 693 (2021).
doi:10.1007/s10661-021-09384-5
In 2013, a campaign to assess the extent of the problem of lead paint in Geneva was carried out on 199 dwellings (186 buildings) and 85 early childhood institutions (94 buildings) built before 2006.
Service de l’air, du bruit et des rayonnements non ionisants (SABRA), Canton Geneva, Peintures au plomb dans le canton de Genève: Occurrence dans les logements & Evaluation du potentiel d’exposition dans les institutions de la petite enfance (IPE), 2020.
Over 3,000 samples of plastic litter were retrieved from 12 pebble beaches around the shores of Lake Geneva. Lead was detected in almost one quarter (153) of all samples analysed, encompassing a wide variety of primary and secondary plastics in terms of size, colour and polymer, and in fragments of polyurethane foam. Concentrations ranged from about 5 to 24,000 ppm.
M. Filella and A. Turner, Observational study unveils the extensive presence of hazardous elements in beached plastics from Lake Geneva. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 6, Article 1 (2018). doi:10.3389/fenvs.2018.00001
M. Filella and A. Turner, Hazardous plastics in Swiss lakes? Chimia, 73, 91 (2019). doi:10.2533/chimia.2019.91
The concentrations of 69 elements in digested sewage sludge and effluent samples from 64 municipal wastewater treatment plants, as well as in major rivers in Switzerland, was evaluated. The contribution of Pb is very low (1%).
Vriens, B., Voegelin, A., Hug, S.J., Kaegi, R., Winkel, L.H.E., Buser, A.M., Berg, M., Quantification of element fluxes in wastewaters: a nationwide survey in Switzerland. Environmental Science & Technology, 51, 10943–10953 (2017). doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b01731.