Tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food.
Sounds like it'll be rough on the road, but I'm willing to try it! /s
I miss the trains of NJ and NYC so badly, this part of Texas fucking sucks with public transportation. Losing access to a car here has you flirting dangerously close to homelessness. Which is also why I'll usually give a ride to anyone who asks around here.
I disagree. People who live their entire lives being relentless bombarded by consumerist propaganda and pro-capitalist disinformation are not truly free to vote against it, nor were they given the chance. Al Gore cared more about the environment than Bush, but he was still a capitalist that supported car dependency and the military industrial complex.
Most probably simply didn't know. A lot has to do with policies made by politicians that did know. Don't pretend to be better, you would have done the same back then with the information you had. Remember, no internet.
We're gonna keep wringing our hands about it, desperately shout time is running out...and watch time run out, then shrug our shoulders and go "Welp, nothing we can do about it now"
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.
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 🤷
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'm all for debunking stuff, but about a quarter seems to be the currently accepted quantity to the best of our abilities to measure.
There is a bit of confusion between the amount tyres contribute into the ocean, how much into the ocean and waterways and how much in the environment as a whole. A lot of it ends up in the soil, so it doesn't contribute to plastics in the water, but still in the environment.
That was an interesting read. I guess tyre fragments (and industrial pellets) are just way bigger than the other big offenders, which would explain why they represent such a huge portion of the total mass, and why they are filtered out "easily". Overall it seems to me that we really need to categorize the different microplastics better, as the current definition (anything plastic 5mm and under) seems a bit too large, and with all the mix ups, you can always blame something else.
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.
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
Cotton and wool can at least be returned to the earth naturally. Cotton can be grown places where water shortages aren't an issue.
Personally the greenest option for me is trying to buy clothing made from nature textiles at a second hand store. I also wear what I own until it is basically rags, if a garmet gets a hole or a stain it becomes work clothing for when I'm doing dirty work. Obviously everyone on the planet cannot do that, but as it stands we already waste tons of clothing with fast fashion and many garmets are only worn a handful of times before being thrown away or even never worn or sold at all before becoming trash.
Someone already suggested hemp, but there is also other fibres like linen.
At the end of the day clothing would not be an issue at all, if clothes were made to last and worn accordingly. Unless you work in blue collar jobs, the wear on clothes is minimal and there is no reason why a set of shirts shouldn't last you a decade.
Watch half the people in this sub completely scroll past your comment ignoring the fact that they are contributing to being insane amount of microplastics in our blood currently
We are far from good:
Cars ruined walkability. Most suburbs are under constant tyre roar within a kilometer from a freeway. Stroads are hideous and biking there is dangerous.
Tyre dust went onto fields, into crops, we ate the dust, gut illness became common. Heard of gluten free? People are sick.
But we let the free market lock us into a technological dead-end. Ending the market religion in state affairs would be good. Some things need a 100-year plan. https://lemmy.world/comment/10858248
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.
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.
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.
Yes, though note that tire and road wear scale with the 4th power of the vehicle weight. If a person on a bicycle weighs 200 pounds and a person driving a car weighs 2000 pounds then the car is going to have roughly 10,000 times as much tire wear (and microplastic shedding) as the bike.
Now consider that people on bikes can even weigh less than 200 pounds and cars can weigh far more than 2000 pounds (I heard of a recent electric SUV that weighs 8000 pounds) and it becomes clear that bicycles are a complete non-issue, relative to cars. An 8000 pound car is equivalent to 6.25 million 160 pound bicycle + rider pairings.
Now consider the effects of 18-wheeler tractor tailors with a maximum weight upwards of 80,000 pounds. These things absolutely disintegrate their tires. If you’ve done any highway driving you’ve likely seen the shredded debris of tires on the shoulder of the road.
Edit: as an addendum I’d like to note that electric vehicles tend to weigh a lot more than ICE cars, by upwards of 1000 pounds. This is one of the reasons I’m dismayed at the rush to EVs: it’s going to accelerate the microplastic problem even as it reduces CO2.
Yes i agree. I have never driven but have been i a car due to medical reasons, but have rode a bike and plan to bike again once im a weight that a bike can sustain (im 370 right now). ive seen thoese tire "husks" on the highway sometimes.
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.
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.
The real reason is cars are heavier. The more weight, the more wear on the tires. You can only make a tire compound so hard before they become uncomfortable rolling chunks.
In the 70s when the fuel crisis hit, cars were very inefficient. Heavy steel and heavy engines that guzzled field. As the technology has progressed we use composite materials to make them lighter where we can. Some of these materials are more expensive than others, so you won't find them on all models. Magnesium and Carbon fiber for example. We started to make cars lighter.
Then there's features, creature comforts, etc. We started adding more and more fancy features over time. These all add up. Heavy sound deadening pads are placed all over the bare chassis. Rip up your car's carpet, underneath you'll find them. They're in the door and behind the dashboard. There's even foam in the A, B and C pillars. We figured out that we can make cars quieter. Now that we can make them quieter, let's add a lot of creature comforts. Power, heated seats and mirrors. Power windows, powered lift gates, and anything else that's powered. These require electric motors. Not sure if you've ever seen these electric motors, but these are actually quite heavy little things. A few speakers is now almost a dozen in many models. Lots of trim pieces that make the car more aesthetically pleasing add weight.
Safety is a huge factor as well. One or two airbags has turned into about a dozen. Extra beams that are used to dissipate energy around you in a crash. My car has 8 alone for just the front driver and passenger.
Got a hybrid or an EV? These absolutely demolish tires because the additional components adds a lot of weight.
Even though we got better at making composite materials and reducing weight where we could, our need for creature comforts and advancement in technology has caused the overall trend for a car's weight to go up. This information is readily available if you'd like to search the Internet.
A set of tires wear endurance has only gone up over time. But because of a car's weight, it reduces its ability. Your driving habits also greatly impact how long your tires will last. Do you have a Rivian or Tesla? Go easy on the acceleration and showing off with the spirited driving. You can make your tires last less than 10,000 mi. Do you add additional weight? How long is that additional weight being hauled around? In other words, if your trunk is full of stuff, clean it out. You're increasing fuel consumption and increasing tire wear.
What? Maybe if you compare an old hard tire with no grip to a modern soft tire with tons of grip. But a modern hard tire lasts as long or longer and has more grip in all conditions.
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.
I come from farmers. They are still breaking down and still an issue. They also cause soil compaction. Anyone familiar with farming understands that tractors aren't good for soil
I wish it was pure iron dust wearing off that steel, but no. The flying drone idea seems good, but for harvesting?
Exhaust gas is poison.
The relatively high amount of metal contents emitted from diesel engines strongly suggests that the measurement on the control of metal contents in diesel fuel should be taken in the future.
As, Hg and Se exhaust emissions were dominated by fuel combustion while Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn exhaust emissions were dominated by lubricant oil combustion.
Vulcanized RUBBER tyres shed PLASTIC microparticles .... hmmmm something sounds very rubbery and not at all plasticky..... i truly wonder what it could be .....hmmmm......
Edit:
"Is rubber considered a plastic?
Although materials such as rubber, textiles, adhesives, and paint may in some cases meet this definition, they are not considered plastics."
Here is a Scientific study MIS-CONSTRUING Rubber as a Plastic AND MAKING ASSUMPTIONS WITHOUT PROPER EXPLANATIONS !!!!
This is the problem with Scientific studies, Media, Reporting and bunch of people running with studies that make a lot of FALSE ASSUMPTIONS WITHOUT TELLING YOU THE FULL FUCKING STORY.
Again there is a difference even when you say synthetic rubber,
DO NOT MIX AND CONFUSE RUBBER and PLASTIC.
Rubber === mixture of ISOPRENE and ELASTOMERE polymers ( naturally occurring from Latex/rubber trees but 50% naturally produced and 50% synthetically produced from petrochemicals)
Plastic === mixture of various Ethyl,Propyl,Poly-Propyl Polymers mainly derived synthetically from petrochemical sources ( may or may not be combined with elastomere for rubberized properties).
So MOST MODERN Industrial processes are DIRTY and HEAVILY POLLUTING.
Dont confuse Rubber and Plastic manufacturing and lump it into a single problem unless and until you have definitive and REPRODUCIBLE PROOF THAT PROBLEMS ARE COMMON TO BOTH.
Maybe we need a new study of "Forever chemicals" and "Short-term chemicals" and "Long-lived chemicals" redefined and not use confusing terms like "microplastics" for anything polymerised. DNA is a polymer but we dont call people microplastics.
Exactly. We need more and better peer-reviewed and vetted studies. Is rubber pollution exactly same as micro-plastics? Or is it 80% the same effects? Is it the same effects due to the same chemicals? Is it similar due to the same processes and not necessarily the end-product material ? Many many questions that people don't seem to understand and just blindly trust whatever some "latest study shows ....." bullshit that has been going on for a very long time.
This is the problem with Scientific studies, Media, Reporting and bunch of people running with studies that make a lot of FALSE ASSUMPTIONS WITHOUT TELLING YOU THE FULL FUCKING STORY.
ah, but randos online know the real story. The Caplocks only adds to your authenticity. Look, you're trying to ague about semantics to discredit concerns about microplastics getting in people's blood streams. Within the context of micro particials, there's really not much difference between "rubber" and "plastic" as what makes them unique to each other is their properties when bonded in large forms. Maybe it's harmless or maybe it's this generation's lead poisons, toxoplasmosis, or aspectos. Aspectos, which by the way, is perfectly natural, but still dangerous to humans. Something I have to remind people when they talk about corn oil based plastics. The half life on PLA may be shorter, but research is still being done on how quickly harm happens and what levels harm can occur.
Thanks for the link that argues against your rant. I guess you could salvage it some by comparing the numbers and claiming the plastic component is lower than the main article's numbers in contribution. It would be awkward though if you find out they already separated those number in their math. It also doesn't change the point that a huge amount of pollution in the form of tire wear occurs constantly and isn't going away anytime soon.