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 “The trips taken back then by train were much slower than what a car can do today.”
By 1891, the US had trains doing 110 mp/h (180 km/h). Here’s the NY Times article from the time about it: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1893/05/12/106864316.pdf
Not sure about your area, but typical speed limits in a lot of the US are somewhere around 75–80 mp/h (121–129 km/h).
So you had the infrastructure built out by the early 1900s. It not only can be done in the US—it has been.
The decision by American governments at all levels to spend trillions of taxpayers dollars subsidising a slower mode of transport was a purely political one.
(Seriously, just imagine how different the US would be right now if Eisenhower had spent $500bn (adjusted for inflation) on high speed rail, instead of building the interstates!)
The decision to mandate planning codes designed around the car, at the expense of all other modes of transport, was a political one.
The decision to spend $17.4 billion bailing out GM and Chrysler was political: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/19/bush-bails-out-us-automakers-dec-19-2008-1066932
And cars are still slower than trains. (The fact you think driving is faster frankly says a lot about how far behind the rest of the world the US now is!)
The minimum speed to be considered a high speed train is generally around 155 mp/h (250 km/h).
China’s newest high-speed trains currently do 217 mp/h in passenger service (350 kp/h https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/china-high-speed-rail-cmd/index.html) and Japan’s new bullet trains will do 375 mp/h (603 kp/h https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-train).
America once led the world with trains. It arguably had the best train network in the world.
The decision to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars giving that up was pure politics.
@ajsadauskas @ColeSloth
I’ll just lob this in to the discussion.
CityNerd did the work, so you can see the city pairs and how they stack up on travel time for Highways vs High speed Rail vs Flying
https://youtu.be/wE5G1kTndI4
@ajsadauskas @ColeSloth That New York Times entry from 1891 is amazing. (Current U.S. highway posted limits are generally 65 mph (105 kph) with intermittent drops to 55 mph (90 kph) but to be fair traffic flows at about 75 mph (120 kph) regardless. If you can keep to your lane at 75-80 you’re at little risk of being pulled over unless you commit the sin of passing a marked police car.)