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"The team is in conversations with the tire industry and hopes manufacturers will be willing to look for a replacement preservative" - Is this how it usually wo

"The team is in conversations with the tire industry and hopes manufacturers will be willing to look for a replacement preservative" - Is this how it usually works? I'd think they should contact some regulator that makes sure tires containing this cannot be sold. Companies don't do things to be nice.

hh3k0 6y ago
I'm surprised, too. And the companies in question should be fined quite substantially, in my opinion. We need to create incentive for them to actually research the possible detrimental environmental impact of their products -- scientists shouldn't have to beg them to use substitutes and the matter shouldn't be settled with the companies responding something along the lines of "whoops, we didn't know that."
- voxic11 6y ago
  Yeah, the tire companies deserve some fines, but I think the drivers who smeared these tires all over the roads are even more responsible for the environmental impact. The drivers should be allowed to get away with "whoops, we didn't know that.".
  - hh3k0 6y ago
    I disagree with that sentiment. I do not consider the consumer to be the one responsible of researching the safety of a product, the responsible party is clearly the one that produced and marketed the product.
  - Tagbert 6y ago
    I don't suppose that any products that you use have unexpected impacts? Have you done the research? It's silly to expect consumers to verify safety upfront. if products are shown to be toxic and alternatives exist, then you can start expecting consumers to choose the less toxic version.
Iv 6y ago
Right now, the question to answer is "how much would it cost to use a different chemical?" and the answer could be "Oh, we just have to use one of the 100 different ones from our catalog, that's barely a tenth of a cent of difference" or it could be "no can do, this is a crucial molecule that prevents tires from rotting in winter." Once you know that, you can approach regulators who will have to weight between the interests of the fish industry and the interests of the tires industry.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >who will have to weight between the interests of the fish industry and the interests of the tires industry. This bothers me. It's not about the 'fish industry' it's about weighting the interests of the tire industry against the life in the Puget sound ecosystem. https://wildsalmoncenter.org/why-protect-salmon/ https://wildsalmoncenter.org/why-protect-salmon/ >Few animals have been as central to the Pacific human experience as salmon. Their annual migrations are a miracle of nature. They feed us and their presence tells us that our rivers are still healthy. From grizzly bears to orca whales, at least 137 different species depend on the marine-rich nutrients that wild salmon provide >Salmon and freshwater ecosystems are inextricably linked by feedbacks between salmon runs, food webs, and riparian forests. Salmon runs function as enormous pumps that push vast amounts of marine nutrients from the ocean to the headwaters of otherwise low productivity rivers. For example, sockeye salmon runs in southwest Alaska contribute up to 170 tons of phosphorous per year to Lake Illiamna. These nutrients are incorporated into food webs in rivers and surrounding landscapes by a host of over 50 species of mammals, birds, and fish that forage on salmon eggs, juveniles, and adults in freshwater. Predators, such as brown bears, disperse these marine nutrients into surrounding forests, enhancing the growth of stream-side trees that shade and protect stream banks from excessive erosion
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    If its really that localized, why doesn't the state of Washington just ban the chemical? Not unprecidented for a state to have its own environmental regs that are stricter than national regs. And since there are no salmon migrating up rivers in Kentucky, it should be less of a concern there and you don't need to spend effort/political favors getting the support from the Kentucky delegation in congress. Sure it would not be perfect, because you would still have out-of-state vehicles using the roads, but it would be an improvement that could probably get done a lot faster and it might be enough.
HomeDeLaPot 6y ago
I suppose tire companies might be willing to find a replacement in order to skip the potential regulations and bad PR.
russell_h 6y ago
It makes sense to start with the companies: if they view this as something that will inevitably be regulated there is a reasonable chance they’ll just comply voluntarily to save the bad PR. They might even see an opportunity for good PR. This approach, if successful, will be way faster than starting with regulation.
- minikites 6y ago
  I think this is incredibly naive. If bad PR worked, there would be a lot more companies going bankrupt.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
The manufacturers are not stupid, they know the next stop will be legislators. Companies prefer to get ahead of things and self-regulate if they know that the alternative is almost certainly going to be government bureaucrats stepping in (which they will anyway - this is going to be like BPA). The results are damning enough that they probably don’t want to waste any time, and finding an alternative will probably take some research. Note that they said this affects every tire on the market, so this isn’t a case of reporting a few manufacturers. This is going to result in an industry-wide change.
jacurtis 6y ago
My concern with this is that it will likely take at a minimum 1-2 years for tire manufacturers to research new compounds that eliminate this chemical. Then it will take probably another year, at best, before manufacturing plants are transitioned over to build this new compound and we start to see the new compound trickle down into new tires. Then it will take 2-4 years to propagate that compound across the entire product line and/or industry. Once the compound is readily available across the industry, then we can rest assured that new tires will be "safe". But tires have a usable life of 2-5 years depending on the type of tire. So it will take many more years before people with "non-safe" tires purchase new ones that are "salmon-safe". Remember also that some people (generally as a result of financial concern) may drag tire use out to 8 or even 10 years. This puts a timeline for "safe tires" at 10-20 years from now! I hate to shout "doomsday", but the Salmon may not have that long. Salmon only live 2-3 years on average before spawning. According to this article, 90% of them are dying due to this chemical during their trip up Puget Sound urban rivers to spawn. Salmon are already operating at low population rates. So we may not have decades to sit and figure this out. As a more immediate alternative, I would like to see if there is a way to neutralize or catch this 6PPD chemical with some type of "filter" in the road runoff pipes or a road-coating that could be installed in critical areas. This would seem like a more immediate solution that wouldn't require global or national "buy-in" from tire manufacturers. And of course all this assumes that tire manufacturers care enough to save the salmon. This is the type of thing that regulation is useful for instead of relying on tire manufacturers to "do the right thing".
- munificent 6y ago
  > This puts a timeline for "safe tires" at 10-20 years from now! No, it puts a maximum end date for 100% removal at 10-20 years. Incremental progress can happen much sooner. What you describe is basically the speed that most large-scale changes occur at. It's just how it goes. > I hate to shout "doomsday", but the Salmon may not have that long. Salmon only live 2-3 years on average before spawning. The salmon will bounce back. It is a real concern and problem that we need to fix, but we are not on the brink of extinction and don't need to panic. > According to this article, 90% of them are dying due to this chemical during their trip up Puget Sound urban rivers to spawn. 90% in some streams. That's the worst case number, but there are many streams in Washington, many of which are not in urban areas.
throwaway201103 6y ago
> Companies don't do things to be nice. They do if it gives them a market advantage. If Goodyear can market tires that are more "sustainable" or "eco-friendly" than their rivals that will resonate with consumers who focus on such things (many of them, particularly millenials and younger). We saw this with trans-fats in food. They aren't prohibited by the FDA, but most producers have eliminated them and have "Zero Trans Fats" emblazoned across the package labeling, because it sells better. Seeing this effect also with high-fructose corn syrup.
- uoaei 6y ago
  That's the point. They don't do it to be nice, they do it because it helps the bottom line. I don't think it's helpful nor accurate to conflate the two, as it only serves corporations who want to ride on paper-thin "social responsibility" PR.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    I guess I don't see the difference. People running the corporations who decide to be "socially responsible" are "being nice." The reason they do it is because their customers want/will pay for "social responsibility." If nobody wants social responsibility, why would it fall on corporations to do it anyway? Why do they get demonized and everyone else gets off the hook?
    - uoaei 6y ago
      You don't see the difference likely because your moral value system prioritizes outcomes instead of intent. This is not a bad way of looking at it and I'm not criticizing that perspective. They get demonized because there is nothing stopping them from simply undoing all those policies once the bottom line dictates otherwise. The public cannot trust corporations who act in that way, and when they inevitably do, they get valid criticism for it. They are using language in sinister and misleading ways, and for most people that is equivalent to lying.
- greeneggs 6y ago
08-15 6y ago
It's probably in the tires because of regulation, and it cannot be taken out without a suitable replacement and without relaxing some other requirement on the tires. Apparently, 6-PPD is there to scavenge ozone. If that ozone doesn't have anything harmless to react with, it reacts with the rubber, which makes it brittle. Ozone scavengers prolong the life of the tire, and make it safer. Companies don't do things because they are James Bond villains, either.
- sagarm 6y ago
  Right, companies are amoral rather than immoral actors. Shareholder value is the sole driver of corporate decision making. Civic duty in particular has no role.

hh3k0 6y ago

I'm surprised, too. And the companies in question should be fined quite substantially, in my opinion. We need to create incentive for them to actually research the possible detrimental environmental impact of their products -- scientists shouldn't have to beg them to use substitutes and the matter shouldn't be settled with the companies responding something along the lines of "whoops, we didn't know that."

voxic11 6y ago
Yeah, the tire companies deserve some fines, but I think the drivers who smeared these tires all over the roads are even more responsible for the environmental impact. The drivers should be allowed to get away with "whoops, we didn't know that.".
- hh3k0 6y ago
  I disagree with that sentiment. I do not consider the consumer to be the one responsible of researching the safety of a product, the responsible party is clearly the one that produced and marketed the product.
- Tagbert 6y ago
  I don't suppose that any products that you use have unexpected impacts? Have you done the research? It's silly to expect consumers to verify safety upfront. if products are shown to be toxic and alternatives exist, then you can start expecting consumers to choose the less toxic version.

Iv 6y ago

Right now, the question to answer is "how much would it cost to use a different chemical?" and the answer could be "Oh, we just have to use one of the 100 different ones from our catalog, that's barely a tenth of a cent of difference" or it could be "no can do, this is a crucial molecule that prevents tires from rotting in winter." Once you know that, you can approach regulators who will have to weight between the interests of the fish industry and the interests of the tires industry.

grawprog 6y ago
>who will have to weight between the interests of the fish industry and the interests of the tires industry. This bothers me. It's not about the 'fish industry' it's about weighting the interests of the tire industry against the life in the Puget sound ecosystem. https://wildsalmoncenter.org/why-protect-salmon/ https://wildsalmoncenter.org/why-protect-salmon/ >Few animals have been as central to the Pacific human experience as salmon. Their annual migrations are a miracle of nature. They feed us and their presence tells us that our rivers are still healthy. From grizzly bears to orca whales, at least 137 different species depend on the marine-rich nutrients that wild salmon provide >Salmon and freshwater ecosystems are inextricably linked by feedbacks between salmon runs, food webs, and riparian forests. Salmon runs function as enormous pumps that push vast amounts of marine nutrients from the ocean to the headwaters of otherwise low productivity rivers. For example, sockeye salmon runs in southwest Alaska contribute up to 170 tons of phosphorous per year to Lake Illiamna. These nutrients are incorporated into food webs in rivers and surrounding landscapes by a host of over 50 species of mammals, birds, and fish that forage on salmon eggs, juveniles, and adults in freshwater. Predators, such as brown bears, disperse these marine nutrients into surrounding forests, enhancing the growth of stream-side trees that shade and protect stream banks from excessive erosion
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  If its really that localized, why doesn't the state of Washington just ban the chemical? Not unprecidented for a state to have its own environmental regs that are stricter than national regs. And since there are no salmon migrating up rivers in Kentucky, it should be less of a concern there and you don't need to spend effort/political favors getting the support from the Kentucky delegation in congress. Sure it would not be perfect, because you would still have out-of-state vehicles using the roads, but it would be an improvement that could probably get done a lot faster and it might be enough.

HomeDeLaPot 6y ago

I suppose tire companies might be willing to find a replacement in order to skip the potential regulations and bad PR.

russell_h 6y ago

It makes sense to start with the companies: if they view this as something that will inevitably be regulated there is a reasonable chance they’ll just comply voluntarily to save the bad PR. They might even see an opportunity for good PR. This approach, if successful, will be way faster than starting with regulation.

minikites 6y ago
I think this is incredibly naive. If bad PR worked, there would be a lot more companies going bankrupt.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

The manufacturers are not stupid, they know the next stop will be legislators. Companies prefer to get ahead of things and self-regulate if they know that the alternative is almost certainly going to be government bureaucrats stepping in (which they will anyway - this is going to be like BPA). The results are damning enough that they probably don’t want to waste any time, and finding an alternative will probably take some research. Note that they said this affects every tire on the market, so this isn’t a case of reporting a few manufacturers. This is going to result in an industry-wide change.

jacurtis 6y ago

My concern with this is that it will likely take at a minimum 1-2 years for tire manufacturers to research new compounds that eliminate this chemical. Then it will take probably another year, at best, before manufacturing plants are transitioned over to build this new compound and we start to see the new compound trickle down into new tires. Then it will take 2-4 years to propagate that compound across the entire product line and/or industry. Once the compound is readily available across the industry, then we can rest assured that new tires will be "safe". But tires have a usable life of 2-5 years depending on the type of tire. So it will take many more years before people with "non-safe" tires purchase new ones that are "salmon-safe". Remember also that some people (generally as a result of financial concern) may drag tire use out to 8 or even 10 years. This puts a timeline for "safe tires" at 10-20 years from now! I hate to shout "doomsday", but the Salmon may not have that long. Salmon only live 2-3 years on average before spawning. According to this article, 90% of them are dying due to this chemical during their trip up Puget Sound urban rivers to spawn. Salmon are already operating at low population rates. So we may not have decades to sit and figure this out. As a more immediate alternative, I would like to see if there is a way to neutralize or catch this 6PPD chemical with some type of "filter" in the road runoff pipes or a road-coating that could be installed in critical areas. This would seem like a more immediate solution that wouldn't require global or national "buy-in" from tire manufacturers. And of course all this assumes that tire manufacturers care enough to save the salmon. This is the type of thing that regulation is useful for instead of relying on tire manufacturers to "do the right thing".

munificent 6y ago
> This puts a timeline for "safe tires" at 10-20 years from now! No, it puts a maximum end date for 100% removal at 10-20 years. Incremental progress can happen much sooner. What you describe is basically the speed that most large-scale changes occur at. It's just how it goes. > I hate to shout "doomsday", but the Salmon may not have that long. Salmon only live 2-3 years on average before spawning. The salmon will bounce back. It is a real concern and problem that we need to fix, but we are not on the brink of extinction and don't need to panic. > According to this article, 90% of them are dying due to this chemical during their trip up Puget Sound urban rivers to spawn. 90% in some streams. That's the worst case number, but there are many streams in Washington, many of which are not in urban areas.

throwaway201103 6y ago

> Companies don't do things to be nice. They do if it gives them a market advantage. If Goodyear can market tires that are more "sustainable" or "eco-friendly" than their rivals that will resonate with consumers who focus on such things (many of them, particularly millenials and younger). We saw this with trans-fats in food. They aren't prohibited by the FDA, but most producers have eliminated them and have "Zero Trans Fats" emblazoned across the package labeling, because it sells better. Seeing this effect also with high-fructose corn syrup.

uoaei 6y ago
That's the point. They don't do it to be nice, they do it because it helps the bottom line. I don't think it's helpful nor accurate to conflate the two, as it only serves corporations who want to ride on paper-thin "social responsibility" PR.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  I guess I don't see the difference. People running the corporations who decide to be "socially responsible" are "being nice." The reason they do it is because their customers want/will pay for "social responsibility." If nobody wants social responsibility, why would it fall on corporations to do it anyway? Why do they get demonized and everyone else gets off the hook?
  - uoaei 6y ago
    You don't see the difference likely because your moral value system prioritizes outcomes instead of intent. This is not a bad way of looking at it and I'm not criticizing that perspective. They get demonized because there is nothing stopping them from simply undoing all those policies once the bottom line dictates otherwise. The public cannot trust corporations who act in that way, and when they inevitably do, they get valid criticism for it. They are using language in sinister and misleading ways, and for most people that is equivalent to lying.
greeneggs 6y ago

08-15 6y ago

It's probably in the tires because of regulation, and it cannot be taken out without a suitable replacement and without relaxing some other requirement on the tires. Apparently, 6-PPD is there to scavenge ozone. If that ozone doesn't have anything harmless to react with, it reacts with the rubber, which makes it brittle. Ozone scavengers prolong the life of the tire, and make it safer. Companies don't do things because they are James Bond villains, either.

sagarm 6y ago
Right, companies are amoral rather than immoral actors. Shareholder value is the sole driver of corporate decision making. Civic duty in particular has no role.