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
So you’re saying you have like 30 with populations at or over 100k? Ok. Wow. The US has over 330 like that. A rail system doesn’t sustain when people are trying to get from one place to so many different destinations and you can’t claim it can, when it’s literally never been created on a scale of anything similar to the US. For everyone to get to their destinations without it taking many extra hours of travel time you’d have to have a massive amount of trains and track, and tons of them would be going places where they may only have a handful of passengers on board, and a train running with just a dozen passengers is a hell of a lot worse for the environment than a dozen cars. A lot worse. Trains are only efficient if they’re closer to full. That can’t happen in the US unless travel destinations limit themselves way down, which cuts a lot of people off from using them.
@ColeSloth “So you’re saying you have like 30 with populations at or over 100k? Ok. Wow. The US has over 330 like that.”
So you should have many more pairs of cities that should support rail.
And once you have a pair of cities that support rail, you can have stations in each of the towns between them.
Even if they’re only a couple of hundred people.
“A rail system doesn’t sustain when people are trying to get from one place to so many different destinations and you can’t claim it can, when it’s literally never been created on a scale of anything similar to the US.”
The US already has an extensive rail network. As in, right now. Here’s a map: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=96ec03e4fc8546bd8a864e39a2c3fc41
That’s all the places where it’s viable for a commercial operator to have railways based on freight.
So a decent starting point would be just to run passenger services along those existing freight corridors, as Brightline did in Florida.
And frankly, if the US had spent a fraction as much on rail as it has on propping up the auto and oil sectors, it’d be viable.
(By the way, before the World Wars, the US had even more railways with a smaller population. Many US towns are where they are because of the railways.)
“For everyone to get to their destinations…”
You have a hub where many lines converge, or lines that cross one another.
If trains are timetabled to arrive and leave at the same time, or arrive frequently, you transfer.
So think of multiple lines between pairs of big cities, serving many smaller towns in between.
Even if you’re the only person travelling between one tiny town on one line to another tiny town on another line. And you’re the only person making that particular journey in a given month.
If there’s a station or hub you can transfer at, you can make that journey by rail.
“…without it taking many extra hours of travel time…”
Trains are significantly faster than cars, and don’t get stuck in traffic.
“…and tons of them would be going places where they may only have a handful of passengers on board…”
If it’s on a line between two larger cities, even small towns are viable for rail. If it isn’t, you run a frequent feeder bus service to the nearest town with a train station.
“a train running with just a dozen passengers is a hell of a lot worse for the environment than a dozen cars. A lot worse.”
You do realise electric-powered trains exist, right? And electricity can come from renewables? And renewable energy can be stored?
“That can’t happen in the US unless travel destinations limit themselves way down, which cuts a lot of people off from using them.”
The problem is that the US has government-owned roads and not rail.
The problem is the US spent $597 bn (adjusted for inflation) building the interstate highway system, instead of investing in rail.
Half a trillion subsidy for the interstates alone.
The problem is that the US government mandated planning codes that make it illegal to build the types of developments that support rail.
The US doesn’t have just “pairs of cities”. You branch off from city to city to city to city you’ll turn a 140 mile straight drive that’s just over 2 hours into a 400 mile train ride with three transfers and 10 hours long.
@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.