Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?
"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.
"In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not."
So it's not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that's causing health issues.
And it's not just exhaust fumes either.
There's also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.
Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn't going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769
https://slate.com/technology/2023/11/car-tires-6ppd-pollution-epa.html I’ve heard this reported several times recently now. Vehicle tyres cause maybe as much pollution as exhaust emissions - both directly correlated to vehicle weight (think EV, think heavy). I mean it seems so obvious; tyres are designed to perform major transference of force via controlled abrasion. We all know tyres are a consumable; they wear out. Where TF did we think this Tyre wear went too? Just magically disappeared? #climate#ev#tyres
There’s a Big Problem With Your Car’s Tires
"Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency formally acknowledged the ecological damage wreaked by tire pollution. The agency announced that it would investigate the toxicity of 6PPD, a necessary step toward a potential ban on its widespread use in tire manufacturing. According to knowledgeable people I checked with, this is the first time that a federal agency has formally considered tires’ ecological harm. At long last, the U.S. is thinking beyond the tailpipe to examine hidden ways that cars befoul the planet."
>> https://slate.com/technology/2023/11/car-tires-6ppd-pollution-epa.html #tyres#cars#EVs#vehicles#machinery#pollution#water#air#toxins
As we move beyond the internal combustion engine & engineer a transfer to #electricvehicles, the #pollution caused by the particles shed by #tyres is going to become more obvious as an #emissions & #health issue.
Already regulatory interventions are being considered on both sides of the Atlantic & tyre manufactures are looking (ahead of new laws) to mitigate particulate shedding from contact with the road.
This is likely to be a growing issue... one result: even more expensive tyres?
On the @motoringpodcast this week we talk about real world data from companies actually controlling vehicles, which indicates that EVs do need tyre changes sooner than ICE. More to investigate, which it will be because this is costing companies money.
More of this please. Using facts and data not ideology.
I thought all we had to do to fix the environment was go meatless once a week and buy a new electric SUV. That’s the solution, right?
Wrong.
While automakers and politicians scramble to transition to a zero-emissions sector in the coming years, the over two billion tires produced internationally may be a problem themselves.
The Yale School of the Environment discovered that tire dust — small particles that break down and wear off of a tire over time — accounts for 78% of the ocean's microplastics.
Rebecca Sutton, an environmental scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute told Yale that "extremely high levels of microplastics" were found in stormwater, adding that "our estimated annual discharge of microplastics into San Francisco Bay from stormwater was seven trillion particles, and half of that was suspected tire particles."
Tires are made of a combination of natural and synthetic rubbers and polymers that are intended to reduce the natural breakdown of a tire as it rolls over pavement.
According to a three-year study done in the UK, a car’s four tires churn out one trillion particles for every kilometer driven. And while two billion tires are made each year now, the Yale University report points out that number is expected to reach 3.4 billion by the end of the decade.
And remember, although they produce less emissions, EVs discharge MORE microplastics from tire wear than ICE cars, because the equivalent size vehicle is far heavier.
As I've said many times before, the best car is not an electric car. The best car is no car at all!
Such is the human world: on one side, you have the stupid idiots who throw this stuff in the river. One the other, you have amazing people coming together and volunteering to clean it.
"2,000 #tyres recovered from River Ogmore in south Wales during clean-up operation"
"Other items retrieved from the River #Ogmore included trollies, fridges and armchairs. 150 #volunteers came together to clear the #river in an event organised by a local resident"
I often like to do thought experiments while #cycling and sometimes I can’t think all the way through to the end of the answer. Here’s a recent one for #physicists who specialize in #relativity. A #bike's #wheel rotates such that the bit in contact with the #road is instantaneously at rest with respect to the #ground (no skidding), at least in #NewtonianMechanics. On the other hand, the bit diametrically opposite to it is moving at precisely twice the speed of the #bicycle...
Now, imagine a #cyclist with the speed of #Hermes and the strength of #Heracles who can go as fast as possible but within the confines of what we know about the real world. If the above still holds, about the #tyres of the bike, then, in the limit, the top of the wheel can go no faster than the speed of light, c, and the mass of that bit of the wheel increases without bound. Does that mean that the bike itself cannot exceed c/2?
"European Union countries and lawmakers will negotiate "Euro 7" proposals this year on tighter limits for car #emissions - for #diesel#cars, but not petrol - and for heavy-duty #trucks and buses, including nitrogen oxide and #carbon monoxide.
The rules would also cover tyre and brake emissions."
This will mean less air pollution and less #microplastics pollution. Car makers balk, but this is still better for them than a big push for public transit.