Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics, Study Finds
Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics, Study Finds
Recent studies have shown tire emissions to be a larger threat to global health than anyone realized—and EVs could make the problem worse.
"Small price to pay for the freedom to travel"
-An actual thing that's been said to me before when I brought up other environmental issues
Our freedom to travel was stolen from us and sold back to us
“Small price to pay for the freedom to travel”
Well, they pay a small price for their freedom to travel. It's everybody else that has to suffer the externalities of their choices.
Let's tax antisocial behavior, so that these externalities are internalized. Carbon tax, vehicle weight per passenger tax, vehicle volume per passenger tax, etc.
It's not even a freedom to travel... It's a requirement. You want to live in area where you don't need need a car? Only a few cities in America make that reality possible. If you want/have to live/work anywhere else... You need a car. That's not freedom. Also those places where you don't need a car are very expensive to live in.
Its not a lack of rails and light rails... It's a lack of local transportation that's fast and reliable.
People actually use the bus system in Ann Arbor because it runs on time, frequently and is clean. I'm all for a transportation haven but a lot of cities can't even walk and are trying to run.
Detroits Q Line is a good example of running before you can walk. The bus system is god awful. Late. No shows. Generally unreliable. Then they just slapped a thing on top of it that's probably even less reliable...
Can we just get some real public transportation options in the USA? I've visited Washington D.C., Boston, and New York City recently, and I'm in love with the subway (etc). Where I live would still require a car, but afaik, none of the major cities around me have anything more than a lackluster bus system.
Best we can do is another lane on the highway. That should fix the problem!
Ok, hear me out: What if we were to dig a system of narrow tunnels under the city, and then let people drive through them. Of course, cars would need to be on some form of automated tracks to make it safe. Then you could link up multiple cars and make long lines of cars following the tracks to the same destination.
It's a brand new concept, I know, but modern problems require modern solutions. Maybe we can sell hats and flamethrowers to generate support.
(/s in case it wasn't obvious)
There could be rapid trains between major city clusters and light rail networks within those cities, so you could, say, take a light rail from your neighborhood to the central hub, then a fast train to another city, then a light rail to your destination.
I'm not saying NYC to LA, but NYC to Philly/Boston/DC and LA to Albuquerque, Vegas, Salt Lake City, even Denver.
That would be a crazy undertaking, but very cool
A lovely thought, but I'm too rural for it to be a possibility in my lifetime, even if things seemed headed that way now.
It's interesting to me that as soon as EV's are finally seriously becoming a thing, we are told that tire dust, rather than ICE emissions, are really the worst thing possible for the planet (and it's somehow implied that ICE vehicles don't have tires). When somebody points out that ICE vehicles do, in fact, have tires too, EV's are STILL worse because EV's are heavier than the equivalent ICE cars. Strangely, the fact that for years, people have been driving ludicrously overweight vehicles (the Ford F150, weighing in at 4,070 to 5,757 lbs, is the top selling passenger vehicle in the US, and last I checked, it had tires) was never an issue.
It's almost like people are incapable of comprehending that all types of pollution are important, not just one or the other. Exhaust emissions are bad. Tyre pollution is also bad. Reducing one is a good step. Reducing both would be even better.
Many things can be bad at once, and I’m sure tire particles really are bad. It is just weird that in the 137 years ICE cars have been manufactured (again, with tires the whole time), the fact that the tire particles were way worse than all the other things cars spew out went completely unnoticed.
I’m only being partially facetious. Yes I understand cars are now much cleaner than they used to be, so probably in the past tailpipe emissions were the dominant problem. But an awful lot of the articles talking about this are pushing the idea that EVs are WORSE for the environment than ICE cars (so let’s just keep driving our F150s!), which is absolutely untrue. Better is still better, even if it isn’t perfect.
This why so many have always said that EVs are not the solution for climate change, they are and always will be a solution for the auto industry.
This is not the reason why they were saying this. They were saying it for other reasons. They didn't know before anyone else. They merely have one more reason now.
This (microplastics from wheels) is a well known fact in science for quite some time though.
Trains.
End lobbying in its current form, make corporate donation to political figures illegal in any form.
Also trains
It will happen anyway tho, just more illegally
So Greenpeace can't lobby for trains?
It wasn't the plastic straws after all?
I'm shocked, shocked.Plastic straws are still very harmful for many sea animals and are apart from that entirely unnecessary (unlike tires).
I have 4 stainless steel straws never going back to that plastic bullshit
What are the odds that a PR group, well aware of the damage of tyres, spun the focus to target small consumable plastics?
Don't look at cars, look at the image of turtles and straws, seagulls and can rings, and porpoises mistaking bags for jellyfish.
Just another reason why private cars are a horrible idea
If only we could have a one company pick people up and deliver them to another point or work from home and have our stuff delivered.
Or work from home and walk to the grocery store that's within walking distance.
Yes, all the manufacturing workers in the US should just... Work from home. And the restaurant, warehouse, service sector, and, like, everyone else. Just work from home! It's magic!
Only a very tiny minority of people have the privilege to even be capable of working from home. The idea that everyone, or even a significant minority can, is absolutely ridiculous.
I mentioned this in a discussion a while back. Tires are a huge problem for society.
The use of tires will be a daunting thing to change. If somehow we all managed to change to bicycles for instance, there are still tires.
The wear is drastically different, at least.
Probably easier to develop an alternative too when it doesn't need to support two tons.
As per the quote below, a car loses about 0.08g of tread per km.
Compared to a car, a bike tyre is about the same diameter, 10% of the width (~20mm), 28% usable tread depth (~2mm), has 50% less wheels, and can travel 10% the distance (~10000km).
This suggests a (very approximate) tread loss of 0.08 * 10% * 28% * 50% / 10% = ~ 0.01g per km for bicycles.
For replacing longer car journeys less typically travelled by bicycle, rail transport is the best solution and removes the issue of tyre wear.
Quoting [deleted] in r/theydidthemath:
Using the same assumptions as above (215/60R16 tires, 7mm of tread loss over 100,000 km), I estimate the loss of tread by volume from each tire as follows:
Cylinder with a diameter of 664 mm and a height of 215 mm has a volume of 74,412 cm3. Cylinder with a diameter of 664-(2x7)=650 mm and a height of 215 mm has a volume of 71,307 cm3. The volume difference between a new and worn out tire is 3105 cm3.
Typical land to sea ratio of tires is 60-70% land, depending on the type of tire. If we go with an about average value of close to 65% tread, we get the lost rubber volume of about 2000 cm3 or 2,000,000 mm3 over a single tires lifespan.
Each revolution of a tire loses about 0,04 mm3 of tread, which, according to Wolfram Alpha, is a bit less than the volume of a medium grain of sand.
If we look at the entire car with 4 tires over a kilometer of road, we get 80 mm3 or about 0,08 grams of tread lost per car per kilometer.
Your model fails to account for weight of the tyres, which has a big impact. I can't figure out what that ratio is though.
Yeah way to not think about the problem or its multifaceted solutions at all. Just write out the first thing that pops into your head and hit post.
Forget about the ocean. There is a more pressing matter as they are closer from tires than oceans : our lungs !!
Yes but no, because from the ocean it gets into the water cycle, and into dirt, plants and animals, and we end up ingesting it too.
Ocean microplastic is much more irreversible than atmospheric one.
A true recipe for ecoanxiety.
When are those Tweel things with the printable treads coming? Sure seems a waste that every time air tires get punctured or damaged or old that we have to toss them.
