So, there is plastic in our rubber tires? Interesting. Can we call it plas-rubber then and sound all futuristic at least?!
Anyone who’s worked in a warehouse with forklifts could tell you this. I remember taking care of a PC in one when I was like 19-20 and asking about the dust and being told it was tires.
My immediate thought was “oh Jesus Christ what must our cars be doing”
Then the first big public studies on microplastics dropped.
so, what alternative do we have to plastic tires? do we just go back to using extract from the rubber tree?
Reducing the use of cars would help.
Fewer cars
that’s not going to happen. if we’re going to think up solutions, let’s think up ones that are likely or reasonable.
Our current car use per capita is unsustainable.
Either we reduce it, or we reduce human reproduction and survival rates.
Mass transit is a likely and reasonable solution, but they want you in cars, slaves to the oil magnates. We used to have e fully electric transit grids before the 50’s until cars began to be widely adopted. Car companies killed them off.
That is the most reasonable and achievable solution. Nothing else would really change things, as tires need to be made of durable materials that shed durable microparticles as they wear. Even trains do this, but because they carry people more efficiently, the impact is lessened. It’s never wise to bet on magic materials when the magic materials of the past are at the root of the problem.
We need a decades long change in both the economy and the way we live to fix most environmental problems. The solutions always exist, but we rarely implement them because power decides the future, not a quest for human well-being. Unless some country gets more powerful or some people become richer, it doesn’t happen. In this case, a solution will only be reached when cars are so disfavored by the country and market that the transition happens naturally.
That’s just the easiest solution.
Using other materials are less convenient.
Yeah fuck you buddy its already happening whether you like it or not. Car dependency is dying and public transport and walkable cities are our future.
You don’t like it go move to your local dying ponzi scheme suburban stroad.
Trains
Steel tyres. They’d also look better!
We need trains so bad
While I agree with you, particularly in urban areas where it’s easy for transit to make sense, I do still think we need solutions for people not living near cities too. Makes me wonder if there’s any tire technology out there to be developed that would either shed a lot less plastic, or maybe not even contain plastics.
Inb4 “lighter cars” or “just walk”, yeah I know, and I already drive a wagon rather than an SUV, to min/max size versus practicality, and I usually try to walk to town unless I need to carry something heavy or the weather is particularly shit, but there’s a ton of times where I need to go on a long drive, sometimes through multiple urban areas (that now get polluted with my microplastics), and public transit offers me no solution, or the solution is to at least double or triple the time taken by my already long drive. I’m eventually moving from diesel to electric to cut down on my exhaust pollution, but I’d also like there to be something that people like myself can do about the microplastics. Not because I think me alone doing something would change something, but because once something exists, it can be mandated by the EU or local governments.
not living near cities
Fewer cars, more green-space in the countryside, so not a huge worry. Cities should really focus on public transit; it fixes so many problems, no more drinking and driving, freeway congestion, traffic accidents, cost of owning car.
There was this chapter in an XKCD book talking about where does tire particles goes. From memory, it said “there are many answers to that question and none of them are good”.
I love cars. I also wish my city had realistic public transport options that worked for my commute.
Trains are the real solution.
Bro-dozer pickups weighing 9000+ pounds are the biggest problem.
This isn’t a hard problem to solve technicaly… it’s just a social problem.
fuck cars
sigh
zip
right in the exhaust pipe 😩
Fuck cars.
. . . Fuck cars? 👁️ 👄 👁️
Dragons love it!
Another community missing on lemmy…
Tja…
There was a guy in Florida who was filmed getting amorous with a woman’s car …
Instant subscribe
Fuck I wish so many cities aren’t designed to be car centric. Imagine QoL improvements
Urban air problems are many, so it’s better to not live in an Urb
For your health!
working to get food is also good for my health so i’ll keep living in the urb for the foreseeable future
“Jobs only exist in big cities” because no one else outside of cities is able to make a living… all areas other than cities must therefore be uninhabited
Yeah, there was a video a little while back that said that one of the only real sets of tyres that are pure rubber these days are plane tyres because of the huge strain put on them as soon as touchdown is made.
We need to get cars out of cities. A blanket ban. Only emergency vehicles, and maybe small trucks for deliveries, and cars for people with disabilities. That’s it.
Imagine how beautiful, safe, silent our cities would be.
Sort out public transport, make it very attractive, even free. Charge for cars, parking, etc, with suspension for needs like disability, hospital appointments, that kind of thing.
The political capital required for such an agenda is immense.
I don’t think you realize the level of Stockholm syndrome created by cars. When you spend more than 50k on a car, of course you don’t want the government to ban it or make it harder for you to justify your purchase.
It’s been done so it’s possible and of course change is hard.
It’s long been known most of the microplastics come from tires and clothing.
The stuff from tires is in the air and the environment as road run off and the stuff from clothing is in the water from washing it.
*urban microplastics (because most nano- and microplastics released into the environment come from commercial fishing by far)
This is where legislation is required, to start limiting tire dangerous particles emissions. 🤷♂️
EU7 will take particle emissions from tires and brakes into account.
What account though, do you have more info?
Mission accomplished.
Or we can just use publicly accessible information to find out who’s making these products and correct there.
I’d assume that all tires are more or less culprit - but yes, if better and worst tires are exposed, it’d be good.
Yes, but the all new 2028 Ford Mustang Mach-E comes with a HEPA cabin filter and racing tires guaranteed to last half the time they would on a Corolla. You can take advantage now of Ford’s More Than You Can Afford Event, and get yourself into a Mustang with Always-Low* payments across a 122 month term!
~* Always-Low payments subject to increase; does not include seven nigh mandatory monthly subscriptions~
I love how the 12² isn’t explained, so it’s really just 144 months of payments.
It’s so crazy that the 144 month term is only barely an exaggeration.
It’s not
You can finance a Maserati today for 180 months.
Woodside Payment: $2,395 for 180 month term
The tilde is so out of place but is it?
Toss in the all-weather floor mats and you got a deal.
Wouldn’t tire abrasion be rubber?
Most vehicle tyres have moved a way from entirely rubber construction a while ago and will contain multiple additives such as polymers to improve performance, lifespan etc.
Some may even be made entirely of synthetic rubber but I don’t know if they are widely used or at all.
that’s my thought: would moving back to pure rubber solve the microplastic problem?
In other news, US automakers are rolling out new vehicles that burn rubber at twice the current rate while offering a blistering 15mpg.
Electric vehicle are major culprits, no? They literally weigh tons more than ICE, a lot more friction between rubber and road and therefore more tire wear?
More to save the car industry than the planet, surely.
It’s a little trickier than that. My Mustang MachE weighs about 4900lbs. The Ford Escape, a similar vehicle by the same manufacturer weighs 3300lbs, so my EV is about 1.5 times more car than the ICE equivalent. However, my car uses regenerative braking, and there is a huge reduction in brake dust from EVs, which some quick googling says can make up to 55% of non-emmission related airborne particulate matter in urban areas. Not to mention that the EV releases 0% (or maybe like 30% depending on the power infrastructure) of the “tail pipe” emissions of a comparable ICE car.
It’s all kinda moot since the majority of brake dust and tire particulates come from the 80,000lb semi trucks.
I’m not doing a deep dive on any of the particulate emissions listed. It’s a complex field, and I’d consider those numbers as “factoids at best” but it a least gives us a ballpark number.
If they’re using the stock low rolling resistance tires, there’s actually less friction.
Not to say that’s necessarily a good thing, since it’s easier to spin the tires with all the extra ev torque.
The computer stops you from spinning the wheels. I chirped the tires on my CRZ making a measly 150lb-ft way more than I’ve ever chirped my MachE GT at 600lb-ft…which is 0 times. I think most the tire wear is going to come from turning/cornering in this case.
You don’t have to floor the pedal every time. Maybe they should only unlock max torque on kick down.
