ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Making lead could soon become more environmentally friendly.
This past week, suburban St. Louis-based Doe Run Co. confirmed it had successfully tested a technology that could change how it produces lead.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the development might mean the end of smelting operations in Herculaneum.
For more than 100 years, lead has been produced with a heat-based smelting process.
But that would all change with the new technology, which relies on a wet chemical process.
The company says it would not only curb pollution but help them improve the overall recovery rates of lead.
The company has been testing the new technology at a demonstration plant near Viburnum.
The goal now is to get financing and open a new plant.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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