microplastics
These days, microplastics seem to have displaced methane and carbon dioxide as the environmental bogy man. And not that we shouldn’t worry about all pollution sources, but it turns out that, once again, driving is a big problem–not just for global warming but for microplastics as well:
“Driving is not just an air pollution and climate change problem — turns out, it just might be the largest contributor of microplastics in California coastal waters.
“That is one of many new findings, released Wednesday, from the most comprehensive study to date on microplastics in California. Rainfall washes more than 7 trillion pieces of microplastics, much of it tire particles left behind on streets, into San Francisco Bay each year — an amount 300 times greater than what comes from microfibers washing off polyester clothes, microbeads from beauty products and the many other plastics washing down our sinks and sewers.”
microplastics
Joel:
Same article . . .
“Scientists were also taken aback by the sheer amount of particles coming from stormwater runoff, as well as the ‘black rubbery fragments’ that made up almost half of all the particles collected from these samples.
‘No one had looked at all the water rushing off the streets during rainfall events to see whether that had plastics in it,” said estuary institute scientist Rebecca Sutton, the study’s lead author. ‘That makes all that driving we do something to think about, not just in the Bay Area, but any setting where there are cars.’”
The biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters? Our car tires LA Times
@Bill,
Exactly my point. Cars not only pollute the atmosphere, they are major sources of water pollution through microplastics.
Joel:
Good commentary. I deleted Fred’s comment before. Just a heads up.
Indeed. My comment was on population growth, which has a lot to do with greenhouse gases, less to do with microplastics. But surprisingly (to me) microplastics have much to do with global warming.
plastics have a significant carbon footprint and emit 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions
plastics found to emit potent greenhouse gases
Microplastics Are Filling the Skies. Will They Affect the Climate?
Zooplankton grazing of microplastic can accelerate global loss of ocean oxygen
Nature Communications – April 21, 2021 – PDF available at the link
https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/101707/9/Tyre%20wear%20particles%20are%20toxic%20for%20us%20and%20the%20environment%200223-2.pdf
February 10, 2023
Tyre wear particles are toxic for us and the environment
By Zhengchu Tan, Alex Berry, Maria Charalambides, Ana Mijic, Will Pearse, Alexandra Porter, Mary P. Ryan, et al.
Abstract
Particles from car tyres pollute the environment and the air we breathe, whilst the long-term effects on our health and the ecosystem are unknown. These tyre wear particles are especially damaging due to the toxic chemicals that they are made from, which leach out of the particles into our rivers and oceans. These chemicals have a devastating impact on wildlife, and they accumulate into the food chain where they will ultimately pose a significant risk. Policy makers and scientists should set out an ambitious research agenda to investigate the problem, from the basics of how and why tyres wear and how this affects people and nature, to potential solutions, including particle capture technologies, new advanced materials and innovative business models, thus enabling a limit to the harmful impact of tyre wear particles on our health, water and air.
How tires wear has been studied closely for decades, so that part doesn’t need a lot of extra attention. They support vehicles in motion over static surfaces. They transmit forces need to accelerate the vehicle (engine power, braking and steering). These forces actually require the slow loss of material. A portion of the wear comes just from rolling along (trailer tires). Compounds have advanced to improve durability and performance plus producibility and cost, but “advances” have environmental consequences too. I think an area that might be investigated is materials to coat road surfaces to better trap tire wear. But cost, durability of those and eventual disposal would be big questions, presuming such materials can be found
While we’re coating road surfaces to better trap tire wear we can paint them white to reflect heat. Doesn’t necessarily address the microplastic pollution but, two birds, one stone, investment in advanced road-surface technology.
This doesn’t come as a surprise to me, having lived a lot where it rains a lot and watched a lot of rainbow sheens flow to the gutter. It’s simple physics really: no matter how improved the product there is always wear and tear, generally in flakes the size of grains of sand, and would do so if they were steel-rimmed wooden wheels.
The scale, however, is … an unsurprising surprise (?) …