Nine US States Ban Lead Wheel Weights – This Is What Tire Shops Use Instead

There are nine states in the U.S. that ban the use of lead wheel weights for balancing tires: California, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Maine. These states are responsible for one-third of all vehicles that have been registered in North America, which includes Canada. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Postal Service also have lead wheel weight bans.

The reason these states — along with Canada, Europe, and Japanese carmakers — have all eliminated lead wheel weights has to do with the environmental impact of lead. Lead is extremely toxic and is connected to a wide variety of conditions that are hazardous to health. The lead weights used for balancing wheels can fall off, only to be ground up into lead particles under the force of the traffic driving over them. Based on information from the U.S. Geological Survey and the EPA, lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans are subject to contamination from this and other sources of lead.

Alternative materials have been produced for use in wheel weights and are currently in use by tire shops across the country. These materials include steel, zinc, and composite materials like Plombco's Plasteel, a plastic-covered steel weight. These new materials can be used as clip-on or adhesive-backed weights, depending on the intended installation method. That said, while not recommended, it's sometimes possible to balance a tire without using any weights at all.

A Federal ban on lead wheel weights was proposed when a citizen petition was sent to then-EPA head Lisa Jackson in May 2009. It noted that the EPA already accepted the fact that 12.5 million pounds of lead from wheel weights was driving around the U.S., with 1.6 million pounds of it being lost when these weights separated from their wheels due to potholes and other normal driving situations. It also emphasized that much of the traffic producing these high levels of lead pollution was occurring in urban areas where children could ingest the lead particles and even use the lead weights as playthings. 

But more than 15 years later, in December 2024, the EPA decided not to regulate wheel weights at the federal level. Their rationale for doing this revolved around their estimation that the dust produced by wheel weights did not expose children to very much lead, even if they lived near bustling streets.

While balancing your wheels is pretty much a fact of life, there's no longer any good reason to use lead weights. Lead is a recognized environmental hazard that is bad for people. If you live where a ban applies, you should be good to go. But if you're not, the next time you purchase a set of tires or take your car in for wheel balancing, call the shop to see whether they use lead weights. If they are, try another shop.