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Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters
- fulvous 7y agoAre tires made of plastic?
- steve_adams_86 7y agoYes,they're a blend of synthetics including plastics.
- supercanuck 7y agoFrom the article: >Rubber is also considered plastic, both natural (isoprene) and synthetic (styrene butadiene).
- grosswait 7y agoDefinitely not what comes to mind when I think of plastics. I usually hear Bakelite quoted as the first invented plastic.
- pmahoney 7y agoThink "polymer" or "synthetic polymer" since these will be the things bacteria and other parts of nature have not evolved around. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer#Common_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer#Common_examples
- kube-system 7y agoSynthetic rubber was, in fact, invented after Bakelite.
- stevenwoo 7y agoThere are reinforcing fibers that automotive tire manufacturers advertise made of steel and kevlar for higher performance tires. Kevlar is plastic and IIRC was invented in the 60's. From riding a bicycle as a hobby, most of my puncture flats on the road come from tiny steel strands that come off of tires that have been used a little too much. I imagine the steel fibers just rust away eventually but the kevlar just gets ground into tinier and tinier bits.
- Uhuhreally 7y agoall I can think about now is the total surface area of plastic in the world rubbing against something and being ground into microplastic dust
- tedsanders 7y agoThis is one reason why I don't like living near freeways, especially near on-ramps, off-ramps, and interchanges. Car pollution isn't just tailpipe emissions - I believe a lot of airborne particulates come from tires and brakes (especially during acceleration, deceleration, and turning). https://www.cdc.gov/air/particulate_matter.html https://www.cdc.gov/air/particulate_matter.html
- anon1m0us 7y agoThe airborne particulates from brakes is asbestos! edit: Very odd that both mine and the contradictory reply to it are both down voted. What I said is a fact, so I'm not sure why anyone would disagree with it.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoThis hasn't been the case since the early 80s. Edit: Yes, you can probably find some no-name pads with asbestos if you look hard. Nobody is selling them knowingly in the US or EU. There are definitively some pads/shoes from the far east that contain asbestos. They don't get purchased by the auto parts stores and big parts suppliers that supply the shops that change most of the countries brakes. They get sold to importers who don't care what they're made of who are selling them on Amazon/Ebay/etc to DIYers at bottom dollar prices. That is such a tiny slice of a tiny slice of all pads it's basically nonexistant.
- everdrive 7y agoWithout sarcasm, what are "raybestos" brakes made out of then? [edit] Thanks all for the clarification.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoNot asbestos and haven't been for decades. They actually have something like "contain no asbestos" on the box (or maybe it's on a piece of paper in the box, it's been awhile).
- 7y ago
- mtw 7y agoAre there tires that are not made of plastic?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoYes but they generally only get used on rails and in low speed applications.
- hinkley 7y agoI dunno about no plastic but there may be less plastic tires. Maybe. When I last bought new tires, I found out that tires lose a ton of their performance even at 50% wear rating. I thought I was doing well picking better tires than factory for my vehicles but it turns out any new tire would have had better handling because it was new. As is common, people don't talk about the problems with their product until they have a solution. Michelin was experimenting with tire construction and formulas that were both greener and retained more of their behavior at 50% (or was that 70%?) wear level. Part of the rubber compound was derived from seed oils. Of course, any woodworker knows about boiled linseed oil. When exposed to air it undergoes an exothermic reaction with oxygen that polymerizes it. Bioplastic. I'm not entirely sure nature makes a distinction between that substance and synthetic plastics. So I'm a little skeptical of Michelin's woo woo about natural materials, since I'm no chemist and who knows what happens to those oils during the manufacturing process. I bought the tires but only patted myself on the back for having a safer car, not saving the planet via consumption.
- kube-system 7y agoThere are also significant decreases in performance due to wear isn't due to the material itself, but also the change in geometry. For instance, when rain grooves wear down, they're not able to channel away as much water.
- hinkley 7y ago
- colordrops 7y agoI appreciate this new concern for microplastics. Since I can remember I've always had a vague fears about using plastic Tupperware and plastic bottle but wasn't sure if it was unfounded. Turns out my (and many others) intuitions were correct.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y agoIs there evidence that Tupperware breaks down and gets into food that you store inside it?
- bpodgursky 7y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ > Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved > Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
- tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago(DISCLAIMER: I am hoping we can discuss this from a purely intellectual perspective and not bring ideology into it) I have always postulated that the increase of estrogenic compounds may have some impact on what seems to be an utter surge of reported cases of gender dysphoria amongst others other disorders that typically arise when you mess with hormonal/endocrine systems. Has there been any scientific research done on this topic or is just viewed as an untouchable subject due to fear of backlash (which would be a shame if so)? It's no secret by now that we have been consuming large amounts of estrogenic compounds now in large amounts, whether it is indirectly through plastics and other industrial compounds, hormone-filled meats and dairy, other animal by-products, prescription of hormones, or more directly through the over-prescription and overuse of hormones and other drugs that have a pseudo-hormonal effect on our brains such as steroids (there is even hormones in our drinking water!) I just wonder if we are barking up a tree we have so little understanding of. As an anecdote, I as a male suffered from gynecomastia. I did a lot of research. I learned what once used to be almost always guaranteed to be denied by insurance because it was considered purely cosmetic, is now so common insurances felt the need to cover it. So the insurance companies seem to have even caught whiff of something being "in the water" so to speak. I wonder if we will look back in 50 years, just like some of us can point back and say about our grandparents and great grandparents generation and say "oh yeah it was all that lead you were exposed to which caused all those adverse effects (health-wise, personality-wise, and IQ wise)" if we will point back and say "oh yeah it was all those hormones or hormone disruptors you pumped into everything"
- solids 7y ago"A scientific review of 52 studies recently concluded that humans on average consume a credit card’s worth of microplastic each week." Wow
- gwbas1c 7y agoAs shocking as that is, I'd like to see some confirmation of that number.
- pembrook 7y agoI don't doubt the analogy, but I think we need to study if this is actually harmful. Does the body expel it entirely as waste, or is some left behind, etc.
- bradlys 7y agoIt must expel it to a high degree. I can't imagine any significant amount of 52 credit cards worth of plastic a year being retained by the body. That would mean that I have approximately 1500 credit cards worth of plastic in my body just layin' around after my 29 years of livin'. I can tell ya - I'd notice 1500 credit cards worth of plastic hanging out in my body. That's 5g * 1500 = 7.5kg (16.5lbs) of plastic.
- gwbas1c 7y agoWe used to think that trace amounts of pesticides in our food supply was perfectly safe.
- kart23 7y agoCan someone tell me why microplastics are actually bad? I feel like scientists have recently been discovering they're everywhere, but is there any negative effect? They really are everywhere, and theres nothing we can do now. I bought a Patagonia fleece the other day, and realized the thing is practically made out of microplastics, or 'recycled polyester'. And Patagonia claims to be an eco-friendly company, even though they acknowledge the microplastics problem.
- liveoneggs 7y agoin atlanta soil near roads tends to have a lot of lead. A daycare near me had to shutdown their playground/garden because it was testing really high in lead.
- sp332 7y agoWhy does it have lead?
- jumpingmice 7y agoBecause of leaded fuel and the principle of conservation of species and mass. Every atom of lead that ever passed through an American gas pump is currently laying around on American soil.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- strstr 7y agoProbably from tetraethyl lead, which wasn’t banned in common fuels until the 70’s in the US. That said, there are enough other sources of lead (e.g. old paint) that this isn’t guaranteed to be right.
- reaperducer 7y agoProbably from tetraethyl lead, which wasn’t banned in common fuels until the 70’s in the US. Except in California, which had leaded fuel well into the 90's for rich people's collector cars. Another example of the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do sorts of things that happen in California.
- undersuit 7y agoYep, California banned leaded fuel for automotives in 1992, 4 years before the United States federal government followed up. https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-takes-final-step-phaseout-leaded-gasoline.html https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-takes-final-step-ph...
- excalibur 7y agoOn the front page of HN at the exact same time, we have two different articles on this topic. One says that most ocean plastic comes from ships, the other says car tires. Clearly they're both accurate.
- bcrosby95 7y agoOf course they can both be accurate. There's a difference between California's coastal waters and the ocean in general.
- decebalus1 7y ago.. the other says <micro>plastics in California coastal waters. Sounds similar, but not the same thing and they can both be accurate at the same time.
- kmonsen 7y agoOnce is in CA coastal waters, the other one is in oceans. They can both be right.
- ars 7y agoOne is measuring number of particles, and the other total amount of plastic.
- jumpingmice 7y agoImagine all the problems that would be solved if someone invented a car with metal wheels, maybe one that can hold hundreds of people, goes really fast, is quiet and efficient....
- jjtheblunt 7y agojust made me think the efficiency depends upon the utilization, so it's high when many ride and low when not.
- mikepurvis 7y agoBut it doesn't take many mass transit riders to make that vehicle more efficient than a single-occupancy car.
- jjtheblunt 7y agotrue!
- umvi 7y ago...and can only go to select locations at certain times that may or may not align with your final destination or schedule.
- luckydata 7y agothe last mile problem can be solved in a million different ways: bikes, taxis, uber, walking, buses... Eliminating car culture is non optional if we want to save the planet.
- umvi 7y agoIt's easy to say "use trains" when you live in a highly dense area. But America-the-continent is massive and not very dense on average. I'm not convinced trains would be viable economically like they are in Japan.
- reaperducer 7y agoInteresting, considering just a few decades ago bundling old tires and sinking them into the ocean was considered an environmentally-friendly disposal method. It was believed that the tires would create reefs, encouraging sea life, and at the same time take care of on ongoing tire disposal problem that occasionally led to catastrophic fires. I wonder what other modern "environmentally friendly" things we're doing now that will turn out to be bas ackward 30 years from now.
- Ericson2314 7y agothat could well be fine, because those tires aren't abraded into small particles the same way?
- hanniabu 7y agoNature can erode anything with enough time, rubber is no competition.
- bluGill 7y agoThe problem is it often isn't fine: the tires are not stationary: as the waves drag them around on the sea floor they do significant damage to sea floor structures that can stand waves by not something more solid.
- pinot 7y agoTires & asphalt "wear" aka become abraded into dust that has to go somewhere
- ip26 7y agoWell, if you pay attention, it sounds like we're discovering plastic recycling falls into that category. It even fits the part where we really wanted to believe it, so it wasn't hard to convince ourselves.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoUsing old railroad ties for landscaping, building things in gardens, parks and playgrounds. They are impregnated with some nasty stuff which outgases when lit by the sun. Which happens to be the time people are mostly around them.
- rudolph9 7y agoWhat are the negative effects of microplastics?
- rconti 7y agoTangentially related; I can't fathom why the US insists on stop signs and traffic lights everywhere. A neighborhood I used to drive through on my way to work had 4 way stops sprouting up constantly. The massive waste of resources involved in hauling 2 tons of steel and glass down from speed to 0, for _absolutely no reason 99% of the time_, accelerating it back up to speed again, just to do the same, over and over, boggles the mind. The noise pollution, the air pollution, the "trash" byproducts in the form of brake dust and tire dust. Why on earth would you voluntarily do this to your neighborhood? It doesn't stop speeding; it's a crappy form of traffic control, and it makes every traffic-related measure of living near it worse. Add to all that the time wasted. I feel the same way about traffic lights, particularly the over-proliferation of red arrows everywhere, telling us that we can't judge for ourselves when it's safe to go, and instead, we have to create gridlock and extensive waits for minimal gain. Most of these problems could be solved by keeping traffic at a moderate, consistent level through the use of roundabouts, rather than the waste of constant stop-and-go. When I rule the world, there will be a ban on 4-way stops, red arrows, and parking lots without walkways. I don't even have kids, and I find it infuriating that parking lots force us to walk behind rows and rows of parked cars, hoping that we don't get run over by someone backing out of a space in one of the ever-increasingly-difficult-to-see-out-of cars we're bringing to market in the name of 'safety'.
- phkahler 7y agoRound abouts dont reduce evergy use much. If you reduce speed by 50 percent, you've still converted 75 percent of your kinetic energy to heat. I agree that many of the stopsigns are not needed.
- souprock 7y agoWe could recover the energy. mgh = 0.5mvv Cancel out the mass, round g to 10 m/s/s, assume a velocity of 30 m/s, and solve for h: h = 45 We thus need a rotary that is elevated 45 meters above the road. That is about 150 feet. This could work for a highway, especially if it is in a road cut.
- bonestamp2 7y ago
- GWSchulz 7y agoDidn’t I just see a post on HN that blamed ships for the plastic?
- beatgammit 7y agoThat's true for the ocean at large, this is about California's coastal areas.
- linusnext 7y agoThis does not in anyway apply to Tesla right?
- whenchamenia 7y agoDoubly so, as they are heavier, and faster accelerating than ICE cars universally by class.
- sxates 7y agoTeslas use regenerative brakes for 90% of braking, so brake pad dust is greatly reduced, but tire wear is no different, if not somewhat higher. It's not just the weight of the cars, but the high torque on acceleration tends to wear tires faster.