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Half the microplastics in our body is from cars. So move to a car-free city district or remote cabin (and then driving train+bike so not to contribute to the pr
by a3w 6mo ago
Half the microplastics in our body is from cars. So move to a car-free city district or remote cabin (and then driving train+bike so not to contribute to the problem?).
- alt227 6mo agoIf cars are causing microplastic pollution, Im sure bikes and trains are too. Im seems using rubber/plastic compounds for tyres and brakes is always going to cause this issue on any vehicle.
- scotty79 6mo agoWith cars there are higher energies involved, and things like that tend to grow with square or cube of the energy. I wouldn't be surprised if car was causing orders of magnitude more plastic pollution than a bike per person per mile.
- alt227 6mo agoThats obvious and goes without saying, but then I didnt state any specific metrics, only that they both casue the same thing even in different amounts
- scotty79 6mo agoThe dose makes the poison.
- Gigachad 6mo agoIt’s quite intuitive to think about. The entire tread of the tire becomes ground up plastic dust. Cars burn through significantly more KGs of tires in a year than a bicycle.
- bertil 6mo agoThe amount of damage to tires is proportional to the fourth power of the weight per axel. That means that for the same journey, a bike sheds (3000 kg / 80 kg)ˆ4 so about 20 million times less. Assuming that the rubber is the same—and not that it has proprietary chemistry that may or may not contain carcinogens. Eight orders of magnitude of difference feels relevant. Almost every train I know use metal wheels. We can look at the few that don’t, but something tells me people who raise that argument don’t want to look at alternative wheel composition, but rather hope to seed doubt and, in private, lobby replace one metro with thousands of cars, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea. So, please, don’t come in here with that bullshit.
- alt227 6mo agoLovely tone, you sound like a really nice person. I never mentioned train wheels at all. Their brake pads are made from things like carbon, ceramic, and resin compounds. These wear down like any brake pads and so cause the same dust pollution. Remember that some trains in the world are over a mile long and have over 1000 wheels. I dont see anybody claiming that bikes or trains cause anywhere near the same level as cars, but it is important to remember that they still do cause some and so they are not a silver bullet. Solutions still need advancing in order to completely remove these pollutants from human transportation systems.
- bertil 6mo ago> Im sure bikes and trains are too. > … for tyres and brakes You are welcome to edit your comment to clarify.
- alt227 6mo agoNo need, it is correct. Bikes have tyre pollution, and trains have brake pollution. Seems like a pretty simple statement to me. Interesting that you have moved from arguing the point into semantics now without addressing anything else. You are welcome to remove your downvotes. People seem to get very upset when others point out that transport like bikes and trains still cause the same pollution as cars. yes it is much less, possibly orders of magnitude so, but they still cause it. Perhaps instead of getting the pitchforks out we could work together to find better wheel and brake solutions for all transpotation methods which dont cause so much toxic dust.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo agoMost of the bike chain lube at my local bike shop is basically just pure PFAS forever chemicals. Might as well cook with non-stick pans if you are applying chain lube to your bike at home.
- matsemann 6mo agoWhy, do you lick your bicycle chain?
- array_key_first 6mo agoBecause cars are intrinsicly an inefficient mode of transportation, even if other forms also cause this problem it would still be orders of magnitude less than cars.
- bertil 6mo agoThe silence from that from media that make a lot of money selling ads for cars is becoming quite suspicious.
- cubefox 6mo ago> Half the microplastics in our body is from cars I doubt it. The article suggests most is from inhaling indoor dust from synthetic textiles.