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Science X's Phys.org site describes a report about the harm from tire particles, which account for about a third of all microplastic contamination in the environment. Unlike other types of plastic, tire particles are smaller, have greater chemical complexity, and different behavior in ecosystems. Thus the call is for them to be placed in a new, separate enviromental category.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research, highlights the gap in current knowledge about the environmental presence, transportation, and toxic impact of these particles. The authors have identified ten priority research questions across four key themes: environmental detection, chemical composition, biotic impacts, and regulation.
The research brought together an interdisciplinary network of experts from countries including the U.K., U.S., Norway, Australia, South Korea, Finland, Austria, China, and Canada. Their findings underscore the need for a standardized framework to quantify and manage TPs and their leachates, especially as the global presence of these contaminants rises.
A second study is being carried out on the effects from tire chemicals and particles on marine life in UK waters.
(Score: 1, Troll) by shellsterdude on Thursday November 21, @03:07PM (10 children)
The study purports to show that tires are a significant source of a type of "microplastics", which is like saying they are significant source of "molecules". Microplastics is too broad to provide any specificity. Even then the study basically then admits basically that "we don't know if this is bad or hard on the environment, we just assume it is and give us more money to research it". How you get from these non-statements to "a Distinct Source of Environmental Damage" requires multiple rounds of begging the question.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Tork on Thursday November 21, @03:25PM (7 children)
... I mean, are you expecting this layer of particulate might improve our immune systems and shorten flu season, maybe?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Thursday November 21, @05:18PM (6 children)
I posit that, if you wrap every individual in a bubble of plastic, there would be no one left to care.
Yes, we should care about the environment. However, we should care more about the humans in that environment. Which a lot of people just don't get. Modern conveniences like Air Conditioners, Houses, Roads, and Running Water were created to improve the lives of people. Who would care, if the entire planet was a paradise and everyone was dead? Assuming more people cared about people, I posit that fixing the environment problems would be a bigger deal to more people.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday November 21, @05:31PM (5 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 21, @06:18PM (3 children)
Then we'll have been very poor engineers.
Space Engineers game quote:
That said, there's all kinds of horrible things wrong with the saying you quoted. Assuming we did clean up the air "for nothing", then we probably did a horrible job at cleaning it. The air quality is horrific in some places and as someone who likes to breathe, I find clean air to be a very nice thing. There's also the "what if scenario" of them being right. Assume we bankrupt the USA trying to clean the environment and either one of these two options. Scenario 1 we find out we didn't need to to do it. Scenario 2 we find out that there was no possible way to do it and/or we just couldn't due to running out of money. In either of those scenarios, pollution will inevitably get worse due to an entire country being unable to afford basic sanitation.
There's also the assumption that the USA could "clean the air of the world" and that's beyond absurd. The only way to "clean the air of the world" is for the entire world to actually care about the pollution they pump into the air. The United Sates is country 102 of 134 on this list: https://www.iqair.com/us/world-most-polluted-countries [iqair.com]
India is the only country in the top 10 that I expected to be there, with China hitting the #19 spot.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday November 21, @07:33PM
I've never actually heard anyone say this. I question the value of worrying about this anyway, we know shit thrown in the air in China can reach us and if it got bad enough to cause health problems over here we'd do something about it anyway just out of necessity. What are we going to do, label alien air particles for air-filters to reject?
I don't think it was ever about 'cleaning the air of world', just a cold reality of the fact that we're all sharing the same resource. It's also easily spun by those wanting higher profit margins.
Right... but not doing anything because others are worse is counter-productive. We're going to pay for pollution one way or another. If everybody develops cancer, for example, then the money savings from NOT putting shit in the air means nothing. Also... ignoring warning signs and continuing to move merrily along means a higher expense down the road to correct it. There's wisdom, and then there's just plain gambling. We lost a big important mine in our last pair of hurricanes. Is that being accounted for while deciding to keep fucking around like this?
There is a very powerful profit motive behind getting that message in front of your face, and it's been going on for decades. During that time there have been huge improvements in air quality, far better/efficient use of electricity, and we have several solid means of generating electrical power. It's less than ideal today but you CAN go buy a car and 'fuel' it with panels in your back yard, but you still can't generate a tank of gasoline. Those technical innovations are considered by some a drag on the existing market without considering the new markets they open. Wanna build a wind farm? Jobs. Wanna build a nuclear plant? Jobs. Wanna build cars that run on electricity and use gasoline to generate that electricity? Design jobs, manufacturing jobs, electrical generation jobs, you name it.
We've been thriving for decades despite the push towards better environmental practices.
I actually do agree with you on the point that silly extremes will get silly results, I don't agree with you that the extremes are what's playing out right now. "Babble" and "doing" are two different things, and that applies to both sides.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Thursday November 21, @10:07PM (1 child)
I appreciate that quote. As an engineer, my mind went straight for solutions. No tyres, or change to a biodegradeable compound. Firstly, I don't think there are any non-tyre solutions? We seem to need rubber/like material to keep wheels on the ground. Until we get flying cars viable, or a hovercraft-like device (hmm starting to think of options there..). The second option, biodegradeable. I don't know anything about tyre compound (other than soft/hard etc), I am sure the tyre companies can come up with something better. But I would think that normal tyre rubber would break down anyway. Everything does, faster if it's in very small pieces, which this is.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @10:31AM
You can do a quick fermi calc of how much of this stuff there is.1
how many cars in your city : lets say a million
how many years your tyres last : lets say three years
how much rubber each tyre loses between new and bald : 3kg as a guesstimate2
-> 1,000,000 (cars) *4 (tyres/car) * 3(Kg) / 3 (years)
= ~ 4000 tonnes per year of this dust dropped on your city.3
---
1. This is very rough, you can plug in much more accurate figures for your particular city.
2. 1.5m circumference * 20cm width * 1 cm tread height * guessing at a rubber density of 1
3. This also doesn't include trucks, which apparently go through way more tyres/km than cars.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Friday November 22, @01:25PM
Or: "What if we make things worse instead of better?"
Here, we know that developed world societies are less polluting and low population growth (driven by immigration of high fertility populations BTW). Meanwhile current environmentalism has a tough time showing it can beat this modest expectation bar - that the proposed action makes things better. It's not a simple choice between good and bad. There are substantial trade offs to environmentalism that are outright ignored. That in turn creates significant poverty and significant population growth. Until one understands the human dynamics - particularly the incredible power of developed world economies, one can't fix the problems of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22, @05:15AM
> ... tires are a significant source of a type of "microplastics", ...
For work I watch a couple of tire industry trade magazines. There have been a few serious studies of tire particulate generation, for example, one I recall used a vacuum system mounted behind a tire and collected the wear particles while driving around. Others sample the ground at different distances from the edge of busy highways and look at the amount (and size) of tire wear particles--no surprise, the smaller particles travel further from the road and are more likely to end up in water. Sorry, no cites, but this kind of research is ongoing and you are probably going to hear more about it as time goes on.
Another post mentions substitutions for rubber and this is also a research topic inside the rubber industry. Historically, the search for substitutes is more about future-proofing in case some disease takes out the natural rubber plants--like bananas, this tree is nearly a mono-culture. Yes, natural rubber (latex, tree sap) is still a significant part of nearly all tires, since natural rubber is lower hysteresis (lower energy loss) than all the synthetic rubbers invented so far.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday November 22, @12:34PM
UK government report on air pollution in the UK (and detrimental effects thereof):
https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/library/annualreport/viewonline?year=2023_issue_1#report_pdf [defra.gov.uk]
My reading is that NOx is most significant pollutant while other stuff is also significant. From the report:
> exposure to the air pollution mixture in the UK has an annual effect equivalent to 29,000 to
> 43,000 deaths for adults aged 30 and over (UK Health Security Agency, 2022a).
[page 33, Note that this includes not just particulates but other air pollution sources. That corresponds to about 0.5 deaths per thousand people per year in the UK, compared to a UK mortality of a bit under 10 deaths per thousand per year.]
> The main sources of
> primary PM10 particulate emissions in the UK are: combustion in production processes;
> industrial, residential and commercial fuel use; agriculture; waste treatment, and road
> transport. In recent years, emissions from residential combustion have increased, both in
> ...
> ... respiratory and cardiovascular illness ... 722,660 cases of chronic bronchitis ...
> although [the study authors] considered the evidence insufficient to establish causality
[page 35, PM10 means particulate matter having size 10 micron]