During the last decades lead was used as an additive in gasoline and emitted into the atmosphere in sizable quantities. The amounts increased until concerns rose about negative environmental impacts of the neurotoxin lead in the 1970s. Today the harmful health implications of lead on human organisms, animals and plants are scientifically demonstrated in a large number of publications. The effects of lead on children's development and health include the impairment of neurological development even at low exposure levels. Effects on adults can include elevated blood pressure and hypertension, resulting in an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. To evaluate the impact of this environmental pollution during the last decades and the effectiveness of the applied political regulations a model system was set up including atmospheric informations on the regional scale, leading to a detailed particle transport study and a subsequent socioeconomic assessment. The airborne pathways and depositions of gasoline lead in Europe from 1958 to 1997 were reconstructed using regional atmospheric model data as input for a particle transport model. Additional data from analyses of concentrations in plant leaves, mussels and human blood were examined for environmental quality purposes. Demonstrating the success of the lead policies, concentrations in leaves and human blood have steadily declined since the early 1980s. The negative economic impacts that had been feared did not emerge. Instead, the affected mineral oil and car manufacturing industries in Germany were able to deal with the regulations without suffering significant extra costs. We suggest that our model system for reconstruction of particle transports, concentrations and depositions can be applied to other relevant substances as well, such as, for example, Persistent Organic Pollutants, radioactive substances or pollens.