[et2o]

I believe that most of the lead used today is a by-product or co-product of mining other more valuable metals like Zinc and silver. Lead is quite abundant in the Earth's crust and found in easy to access deposits.

I think >80% of the current industrial use of lead is for batteries. It's probably still in the top ten most mined metals by dollar value and definitely by mass.

[salty_biscuits]

The mineral containing Zinc is called Sphalerite, which is based on a greek etymology for "deciever" because it commonly occurs with Galena (which has Lead and Silver) and looks similar.