What is lead used for in everyday life?

Answer 1

You know the thing dentists drape around you at the dentist? GUESS WHAT? That is filled with lead.

Back before people took care of the fact that lead was poisonous, pencils had lead! Now improved pencils have graphite.

A2. Lead is used in car batteries, solder, waterproof flashings for buildings, and is commonly used for stopping ionizing radiation.

The only occasion a dentist drapes a lead-filled cloth round you, is when s/he is about to x-ray your teeth.

It may well be that pencils NEVER contained lead. The Borrowdale graphite pit, the prime source of graphite for pencils, was originally thought to be lead and was called plumbago. The Romans certainly used thin lead as a writing material on to parchment, but our familiar wood stick with a graphite core was never made with lead.

And odd fact #3, pencils are used as an ISO test for the hardness of paints and similar.