4 ms·
Yes, the tires wear, and the wear can be easily measured by the mass difference between a new tire, worn tire, divided by the distance. Plausible that the tota
by toss1 7y ago
Yes, the tires wear, and the wear can be easily measured by the mass difference between a new tire, worn tire, divided by the distance. Plausible that the total wear is 1-3 orders of magnitude total mass greater than modern tailpipe emissions.
A huge question that is never answered is how much of those worn particles actually become airborne, how many stay airborne for how long, and what is their effect on organisms breathing them.
While the Precautionary Principle says we should assume harm, this entire article seems to assume that every microgram is automatically the most harmful possible pollutant, which is likely untrue, unnecessarily alarmist, and undermines their thesis.
- sjg007 7y agoIt will be dose dependent.
- toss1 7y agoExactly. Question is, what is the dosing level that would cause harm, and what are the routes that this material takes that might rise to such a level, vs how much is, e.g., stuck on the pavement and washed into the ditch with every rain?
- labawi 7y ago> stuck on the pavement and washed into the ditch with every rain? This is also an important problem - there is a lot of synthetic rubber particulate in waterways and oceans - a notable fraction of all microplastics.
- toss1 7y agoExactly, so while the authors are ringing alarms about the particles from a health POV, they might be a irrelevant to that threat, but a major threat to certain ecosystems, or nothing at all. Certainly bears good investigation, but far too soon for conclusions (an I'm usually biased towards acting based on Precautionary Principle, but this just seems far too indirect to even make assumptions, let alone conclusions).
- sjg007 7y agoI think we know that living near major roads is bad for you. So to figure out the dose you'd have to measure it at different distances. Volume and type of traffic. If you live near a major road you probably want to run an air cleaner with a hepa filter and not go outside to much or on busy days. https://www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/outdoor/air-pollution/highways.html https://www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/outdoor/air...