Tire rubber accounts for about 25-30% of all microplastic emmission on land. But we are talking about Q-tips and putting filters into washing machines, because the car lobby successfully stirred the discourse away from themselves.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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@tryptaminev @mondoman712 How very true, not to mention the particulate air pollution which comes from vehicle tyres
@tryptaminev and that no matter what motor they carry 😬 #microplastic #tires https://phys.org/news/2022-11-unraveling-secrets-microplastics.html @mondoman712
It's probably even worse with EV-s since they're heavier than ICE cars of similar class/size.
@mondoman712 No, they don't. Go read one of the rebuttals. The original, occasionally repeated pseudo-study claimed that tyres and brakes cause *hundreds* of times more particulate pollution than exhaust. This is physically impossible as both would wear down much faster than is observed.
See e.g.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aar8njoGgNY
Also this thread (use the Internet Archive):
https://twitter.com/MatthewToad42/status/1532728307908763650
https://twitter.com/MatthewToad42/status/1596861715547066370
https://twitter.com/KateFantom/status/1542246513329508352
I'm not saying tyres and brakes aren't a problem. Certainly we need to improve on them. And we need to reduce the number of cars.
But they're not as big as problem as claimed in these dubious pseudo-studies. Otherwise we'd be replacing tyres rather more often than we do.
This is just pro-petrol propaganda.
Thanks for the info, your links all seem to cover the Emissions Analytics claim, but this article also mentions research from California which seems to have much more realistic numbers.
I think if you look at the community that I posted this to, you might see that I'm not interested in electric vs ICE, just fewer cars.
@mondoman712 I can't read the article at the moment as it's paywalled. I assumed it was yet another repeat of the Emissions Analytics BS since there seem to be a few about. If there is new, credible, peer reviewed work on this, then that's a good thing and I'm sorry for dismissing it.
I believe there is a risk of perfect vs good. A small number of people will need cars long term for various reasons (equipment and some disabilities). Cars, vans, buses, and residual road freight, will need to be electric.
But most of what we need to do to get to that point i.e. making cities more accessible, safer, etc, will take significant time, construction work, political challenges and social attitude changes. We will need to change attitudes to cars, attitudes to women, BAME and disabled people. We will need to build a lot more housing (bikes don't work if you can't afford to live nearby). We will need to build segregated cycle lanes, move retail businesses around, and very possibly increase density. Carrots and sticks work, and the transformation of e.g. Paris is inspiring, but as with all such changes it's hard-fought; shopkeepers will oppose even simple easy wins like converting on-street parking to bike lanes. And many people have good reason to fear public transport (of course, many people don't have a choice; the assumption that the important people / the majority drive is a problem in itself). Making cities accessible to disabled people with mobility issues will also take time and a lot of work. For long haul, new train lines take decades.
My point is while we may be able to reduce miles driven by 30% or so with improved bus services, getting to 80% will probably take decades.
We can't ban cars overnight, but there's a lot we *can* do relatively quickly (especially on buses), and a lot that we need to make a start on.
I would not be surprised if tyres were responsible for a significant fraction of the microplastics problem. Which is just another reason why a society with fewer cars would be a better one, although it should be possible to improve tyres relatively quickly as there hasn't been much work on them until recently and they have to be replaced regularly anyway.
Given the difficulties getting to a non-car-obsessed society, and the needs of the developing world, the peak number of EVs might well be similar to the number of cars now. Degrowth is vital but not a magic bullet any more than EVs are. Degrowth is part of an overarching socialist framework, but while some demand reduction measures can be implemented quickly, many will take longer.
Audiences change. People *will* weaponise such claims to discourage *any* action.
Anyway, thanks, and good luck.