Concerned about microplastics? Research shows one of the biggest sources is car tyres
A lot of the emphasis on reducing microplastics has focussed on things like plastic bags, clothing, and food packaging.
But there's a growing body of research that shows one of the biggest culprits by far is car tyres.
It's increasingly clear that we simply cannot solve the issue of microplastics in the environment while still using tyres — even with electric-powered cars.
"Tyre wear stands out as a major source of microplastic pollution. Globally, each person is responsible for around 1kg of microplastic pollution from tyre wear released into the environment on average each year – with even higher rates observed in developed nations.
"It is estimated that between 8% and 40% of these particles find their way into surface waters such as the sea, rivers and lakes through runoff from road surfaces, wastewater discharge or even through airborne transport.
"However, tyre wear microplastics have been largely overlooked as a microplastic pollutant. Their dark colour makes them difficult to detect, so these particles can’t be identified using the traditional spectroscopy methods used to identify other more colourful plastic polymers."
"Microplastic pollution has polluted the entire planet, from Arctic snow and Alpine soils to the deepest oceans. The particles can harbour toxic chemicals and harmful microbes and are known to harm some marine creatures. People are also known to consume them via food and water, and to breathe them, But the impact on human health is not yet known.
"“Roads are a very significant source of microplastics to remote areas, including the oceans,” said Andreas Stohl, from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, who led the research. He said an average tyre loses 4kg during its lifetime. “It’s such a huge amount of plastic compared to, say, clothes,” whose fibres are commonly found in rivers, Stohl said. “You will not lose kilograms of plastic from your clothing.”"
"Microplastics are of increasing concern in the environment [1, 2]. Tire wear is estimated to be one of the largest sources of microplastics entering the aquatic environment [3,4,5,6,7]. The mechanical abrasion of car tires by the road surface forms tire wear particles (TWP) [8] and/or tire and road wear particles (TRWP), consisting of a complex mixture of rubber, with both embedded asphalt and minerals from the pavement [9]."
https://microplastics.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43591-021-00008-w
#car #cars #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #FuckCars @fuck_cars #environment #microplastics #pollution #plastics
@ColeSloth Here's how that problem was solved in a country called *checks notes* America in the early 1900s: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2Fbon-U7GpfU-Qps1R7xOyG1EfRjRVSyX7FsVdhN_kpng.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Df05295494056e3b1e6821c853aeb4aed61909ce8
Here's a map of just the Illinois Central Railroad:https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSm-rwgQ1PSRo4GIplmxRZscx_nF-betb5SMRbEo7juj5nxUP0lpUp-NXs&s=10
And Missouri: https://www.loc.gov/item/98688505/
This is what America used to have, albeit with a much smaller population.
Lots of hubs, lots of lines crossing each other. Lots of small towns served in between.
See, what the people in America knew was that trains are faster than automobiles, and they still are.
So you've effectively turned one-hour straight train journeys (with one or two transfers at most) into two hours stuck in traffic.
Because unlike cars, the more people use trains, the more frequently services run, so it gets faster the more people use it. Whereas the more people drive, the more traffic there is, and the slower it gets.
I don't live near one of the big cities with traffic jams. There's generally only a couple cities per state (average) at most that commonly have traffic jams like that.
And yes, in the early 1900's. When a car was "fast" if it did 30 mph, had shit suspension, was good for about 60,000 total miles, had no freeways everywhere, and had like 3 million cars in existence. People didn't take the train because it was faster, so much as because people didn't own cars, and the ones that were available were only cars in the sense of they had 4 wheels and an engine attached. The trips taken back then by train were much slower than what a car can do today.