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Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment – urgent action is needed
(theconversation.com)
Trains.
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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Lots of things contribute to this. Vehicle weight (extra stress on the tires), wheel alignment (toe-in/out causes scrubbing which causes more wear), unmaintained suspensions (worn out shocks, struts and bushings causing the above), burnouts (obviously, but, even in winter being the guy doing a burnout on summer tires while trying to get up an icy hill or across the intersection still counts), tire compound, road design, and driving style. If we had more cargo trains doing logi instead of long haul trucks we could probably cut down on a lot of pollution both in exhaust particles and tire particles.
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what's the percentage comparison to microplastics that are released by the floating plastic island in the middle of the Atlantic?
I can't imagine much microplatics are getting chipped off of them. The tires have thousands of pounds of pressure being put on small surface areas when you round corners, where as a plastic bottleneck can dolphin into the water if hit by a large wave and not nearly as much friction placed on it.
How I imagine it
so plastic floating in a salty ocean, being hit with wave after wave of hundreds if not thousands of tons of pressure 24 hours a day 7 days a week for literal decades all while slamming into other plastic bottles will release less plastic than tires?
IDK. I think a wider study should be done.
50-75 trillion pieces of plastic exist in the ocean today and makes up 80% of all marine pollution.
plastic itself isn't easily recycled either. tires on vehicles can be reliably recycled into other products like asphalt, roof shingles, new tires, etc.
I think if the concern is about microplastics, there are bigger pollutants at hand that need attention before car tires.
What I'm going to need a lot more digital bottle nosed dolpin bottles to emulate this.
Wow, now imagine what tractor tires are doing to the fields we grow our food in. Plus the exhaust and tires deposit heavy metals. I have been bitching about this for years. We need drone fleets in fields and to ban tires and exhaust in fields.
The tires aren't breaking down like they do on asphalt. Not the same.
That we know of.
But electric cars will fix everything. Thats what electric car manufacturers said!
That’s why this is so important. Now that we’re finally starting to move to electric vehicles and can see a future with no exhaust and much less brake dust, that tire pollution stands out even more.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Trains and busses, actually.
Trains seemingly solve all problems that were created by a bunch of rich people
The only thing I see amerikans taking 'urgent action' on is making sure a few select convicted criminals avoid doing any prison time.
Also, we're due for a new high school shooting record. Maybe we can break it this next time.
Not surprised but happy that someone identified this source
Unfortunately this is known since two decades or so. I have learned about it in Uni 5 years ago.
I expect that car and tire manufacturers have been lobbying against this getting more attention extensively. There is no other solution except reducing car traffic.
If only there was a highly efficient mode of transporting people that didn’t use tires. Ah well, nothing can be done I guess.
My city's metro system uses rubber tyres, :(
Brisbane? Their metro is literally a bus 😂 the council are so proud of it too.
Our public transport in Vic leaves much to be desired but at least we have a well developed tram system that reduces the number of tyres in the collective fleet.
We did just outlaw e-scooters which was necessary because the infrastructure and community education wasn't there and it was dangerous. But long term e-scooters do serve a place in a less car reliant community. Bike infrastructure investment is decades behind what it needs to be.
Much like everywhere, the oversized nature of "yank tanks" seems to be a large factor in every single thing wrong with cars and car infrastructure these days.
Smaller, lighter cars don't wear through their tyres as fast 🤷
I imagine it's still orders of magnitudes better than everyone driving their own car in.
Same with busses. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good
Yes, imagine if there was a fast and safe way of transport. Something like made to run on steel bars in order to reduce friction. I don't know. I'm just imagining, I watch too much science fiction.
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Action won't happen. In fact, we'll increase the amount of pollution!
The factory must grow.
Ahhh ups this is reality. Better don't over do it.
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While there's no doubt tires are bad for the environment, a quarter of all microplastics seems a lot, especially since plastic is everywhere. Gladly there's a source for that claim, a link to tireindustryproject's FAQ... Claiming that this number is a gross overestimation. What the fuck is this article? Is it supposed to be satire or something?
I’ve read arguments that typical plastic pollution never really wears enough to become micro plastics. Not that it’s ok, just that it stays in macro pieces
Bear in mind that the denominator is plastic pollution. Most plastic waste does not directly pollute the environment. If it is not recycled then it goes to landfills or incineration. Not ideal, but at least the damage is contained. (The bulk of ocean plastic comes from the rivers of poor countries without proper waste management.)
The issue with tyre microplastics is that it's all but impossible to channel the waste. It's the same with synthetic fabric: just washing it creates pollution that's really hard to control.
(The bulk of ocean plastic comes from the rivers of poor countries without proper waste management.)
This might be true for places nearer to shore, but studies have found the great Pacific patch to be mostly discarded fishing gear by weight.
Yes I've seen this factoid too, but I struggle to see how it could be true. We're comparing theoretically non-disposable kit from individual boats with the output of a large number of massive rivers in countries with populations of hundreds of millions (in particular Indonesia and Philippines) and a terrible habit of dumping trash in waterways. The amount reaching the ocean must by definition be huge.
Of course, the main problem with discarded fishing nets is not that they are plastic but that they destroy the ecosystem by design. Maybe the two harms have been conflated.
I also struggle with it, but the research I've seen is that it's the majority by weight. Microplastics wouldn't get picked up, so they'd be really hard to be weighed.
Then again, these big pieces will be shedding microplastics all the time so maybe they're contributing to it as well.
Either way, we've got two problems: Plastic runoff from rivers and fishing gear disposal. And both, I think, could be solved by simply providing cash for people who can verifiably dispose of plastics. Check out some nets and floats and line, check in a certain amount and you get money back. Because people are greedy and stupid we need to incentivize cleaning things up.
Agreed. Great idea.
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