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The alternative is polluting the entire planet with micro-plastics for a 5% savings in greenhouse gasses.
by soperj 4y ago
The alternative is polluting the entire planet with micro-plastics for a 5% savings in greenhouse gasses.
- hinkley 4y agoThis does nothing to prevent micro plastics. Micro plastics are plastics that have escaped into the environment, which by definitions means we are no longer collecting them for disposal or recycling. All this does is keep some recycling programs from shutting down, and most of those are collecting bulk #1 and #2 which as far as I’m aware are not the major source of micro plastic pollution. Patagonia has a fucked up plan of using recycled polyester in everything lately and I don’t see how nobody is noticing that a major source of urban micro plastics is going to be coming from dryer lint. Which means synthetics and dryers are a bad combo. I line dry all my exercise clothes, but most people don’t.
- Xylakant 4y agoif you're worried about microplastics from drying your patagonia fleece in the dryer, worry about other things first. Car tires get ground up into microplastic and estimates range between 10 and 28% of the total microplastic pollution in the oceans [1]. And that's not surprising - the weight loss of a single tire over its lifetime likely exceeds the entire weight of your fleece jacket. Drive less car miles before worrying about patagonia clothes. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/tires-unseen-plastic-polluter https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/tires...
- HPsquared 4y agoFor tires, is anyone working on biodegradable or otherwise eco-friendly tire materials? Something that is biocompatible. Although you don't want tires breaking down and causing accidents... Tires have a lot of conflicting design requirements.
- mandmandam 4y agoBio tires would be great, but the more immediate, easy and efficient solution is public transport investment to reduce car use.
- LarryMullins 4y agoTires made with natural rubber are nothing new, that's the way all tires used to be made. And I doubt it's any better for the environment, from either a microplastics perspective or a deforestation perspective.
- hinkley 4y agoMichelin had a tire formula a few years ago that was augmented with natural hydrocarbons. They claimed that it gave the tire better performance at 50% tread wear as well. But I found out recently they don’t sell the model I bought anymore so I’m not sure if the expectations matched the projections or what happened.
- einpoklum 4y agoI'm wondering - how much microplastics come from _bicycle_ tires? I mean, surely it's a lot less, but how much less? Say, per bike km ridden?
- Xylakant 4y agoI can tell you that my pair of bike tires is now 13 000km old, still going strong, and weighs about 790g each. It may loose maybe 100 or 200g over it's lifetime, but unlikely that it's even that much. Worst case estimate so far would be 790g/13 000km, or 0.061g/km per wheel - under the assumption that the whole tire is consumed.
- hunter2_ 4y agoFor cars and bikes alike, it all comes down to how much work the tires are doing, which is to say, how much hard acceleration and hard braking occurs, especially to the point of losing traction despite grippy conditions (burnout/skid), in conjunction with how much mass is being moved. E-bikes and e-scooters are going to be way worse than human power, per distance, because of the quicker acceleration/braking. My FWD scooter is always slipping on uphill climbs, but my RWD bike doesn't because the weight is shifted appropriately. Lots of considerations.
- hinkley 4y agoWe should worry about the global phenomenon of microplastics for sure, but most of what’s in my yard came from litter or from the dryer vent. Also they used to use more natural fibers and now it’s almost all blends, except some of the work clothes.
- Retric 4y agoHow exactly do materials go from dryer lint to trash bag and then somehow end up in the ocean? I can see a washing machine sending micro plastics down the drain resulting in some small percentage of those ending up in the ocean. Assuming some failure where raw sewage was dumped into a river or ocean.
- jasonjayr 4y agoMost, if not all dryers vent to the outdoors. Some particles make it through the lint trap into the hot/humid air stream into the environment. Normal wear of the garments will shed micro particles from just rubbing up against them.
- Retric 4y agoSo using a dryer is better for the ocean than air drying, good to know.
- kraquepype 4y agoI would think air (line) drying would be better in terms of microplastics, since there is no tumbling. Would it be safe to say that (mostly) frictionless line drying would shed fewer particles than tumble drying?
- Retric 4y agoThe dryer collects already loose or broken fibers in the lint trap for disposal. Air drying doesn’t which means those large broken fibers containing several orders of more magnitude more plastic than might escape from a dryer end up in the environment. This is why new clothes result in dramatically more lint than old clothes by weight.
- hunter2_ 4y agoIsn't it possible that tumbling is the only significant source of breakage?