Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters • Hacker News Board

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#171

Post by Scoundreller » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #91

tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(DISCLAIMER: I am hoping we can discuss this from a purely intellectual perspective and not bring ideology into it) I have always postulated that the increase of estrogenic compounds may have some impact on what seems to be an utter surge of reported cases of gender dysphoria amongst others other disorders that typically arise when you mess with hormonal/endocrine systems. Has there been any scientific research done…

There are so many things that have changed in the last 50 years that there is a a large surface area of changes that could be causing mass hormone imbalance. Plastics, daily dairy consumptions (every meal!), soy, sedentary lifestyle, processed food, lack of minerals in soil/food, not being exposed to natural fungus in soil and nature, not consuming enough fermented foods because we have refrigeration, not enough medi…

Dunno about the benefits of fermented food: oxidized nitrates ain’t great for you.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#172

Post by phkahler » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #163

Tangentially related; I can't fathom why the US insists on stop signs and traffic lights everywhere. A neighborhood I used to drive through on my way to work had 4 way stops sprouting up constantly. The massive waste of resources involved in hauling 2 tons of steel and glass down from speed to 0, for _absolutely no reason 99% of the time_, accelerating it back up to speed again, just to do the same, over and over, bo…

Round abouts dont reduce evergy use much. If you reduce speed by 50 percent, you've still converted 75 percent of your kinetic energy to heat. I agree that many of the stopsigns are not needed.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#173

Post by bonestamp2 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #163

Tangentially related; I can't fathom why the US insists on stop signs and traffic lights everywhere. A neighborhood I used to drive through on my way to work had 4 way stops sprouting up constantly. The massive waste of resources involved in hauling 2 tons of steel and glass down from speed to 0, for _absolutely no reason 99% of the time_, accelerating it back up to speed again, just to do the same, over and over, bo…

> I can't fathom why the US insists on stop signs and traffic lights everywhere. A neighborhood I used to drive through on my way to work had 4 way stops sprouting up constantly.

I don't mean to sound snarky or judgemental, so please understand that is not my intention... Sometimes they do this to dissuade people from commuting to work through neighborhoods. Again, I don't mean to judge, that might be the best/safest/only/etc way for you to get to work and you may not be the target of these stop signs.

There is a 4 way stop in my neighborhood that is going to be converted to a traffic circle next year to keep traffic moving. Waze currently routes a lot of traffic through our neighborhood when the freeway is backed up at rush hour. I think the traffic circle might make it worse since the "pain" of the 4 way stops will be gone so the backup might be gone but the traffic volume would be higher. I might be wrong, but I'm curious to see the final effect. I'm also not sure which is worse for overall health and safety -- the higher volume with no bottleneck or lower volume with a bottleneck.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#174

Post by labawi » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

wcunning wrote: post #118

Steltek wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TIL gas taxes paid for Boston's Big Dig. What states actually reap a surplus from personal auto fees? Meanwhile, are you including in your thought process any of the following? - Public land permanently dedicated to roads, highways, parking lots, etc - Parking minimums in zoning codes - Police resources dedicated to traffic enforcement - Wars of aggression fought to preserve oil prices - Oil industry subsidies - Inno…

In order: Public land will be permanently dedicated to rails and stations and things, if you want to cover the same area with transit access, you'll need similar, if not the same public land. Parking minimums are not about being pro-car so much as being about anti-poor. This is a subsidy to entrenched interests, not to cars. Police make money from traffic enforcement. Many departments get their whole budget from that…

1) Single occupant car transport is the least space efficient mode of travel in wide use, with wide margins. That even includes dedicated rail, if reasonably frequented, as in a moderately dense city.

2) Phrase it as you may, parking minimums raise cost of housing and/or disperse the cities increasing distances traveled, turning cheap options of walking or cycling into requisite car travel, which again widens roads, increasing distances...

3) No idea if true. Even so, less cars and less oil should leave more available resources for more useful things. Bad funding schemes are an argument, but I would consider it a sufficient one.

4) Yes they were bad. Probably still are. Trains can be electrified and no idea how that relates to wars.

5) I agree car subsidies are bad. Not sure about feasibility or seriousness of proposed end on pedestrian subsidies. Would you stop building sidewalks? Roads?

6) I will deflect to a more pressing concern and argue car travel inflicted pollution collectively does significantly more harm to health and quality of life of most residents, than the few, yet no less tragic traffic accidents.

How about we don't incentivize car usage, including all the reasons that make it convenient, useful and often almost unavoidable, like zoning, parking, wide roads, cheap fuel etc? Car is a car, and in this instance, newer cars may be even worse polluters with their tire particulate.

7) Sedentary life style is not about length of commute. If you don't own a powered personal transporter, you will almost certainly either walk more or cycle more or at least stand on your motorized scooter as you do want to get somewhere.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#175

Post by bradlys » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

petschge wrote: post #159

allannienhuis wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of people don't live in densely populated areas but MOST of the people do live (or around) densely populated areas, no? (just checked - google says 82% of US population is in urban areas). Addressing issues for most of the people first would have the most impact.

I will repeat a comment that I have made on HN before: 50% of the US population live in just 35 metropolitan areas (Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Washington, DC; Detroit, MI; Houston, TX; Atlanta, GA; Dallas, TX; Boston, MA; San Bernardino, CA; Phoenix, AZ; Minneapolis, MN; Orange County, CA; San Diego, CA; Nassau, NY; St. Louis, IL; Baltimore, MD; Seattle, WA; Tampa, FL; Oakland, CA;…

"Without needing a car" is pretty vague. There are many people in the USA who live all over who don't own a car.

I lived in a small town of 4,500 people without a car too. Same for a 20,000 person one. Same for a 160,000 one. Same for a 600,000+. I've done it in multiple 1+ million cities too.

It doesn't mean your quality of life is the same as it would be with a car.

Regardless - I don't think comparing Germany to the USA with population density is going to work. A lot of Germany is clustered with high density. You can put a million people in 1 square mile, leave 999 square miles empty and it'll have the same population density as any other 1000 square mile 1000/mi region.

Sprawl is the issue with the USA. That 600 habits per square mile goes out forever whereas in Germany it has a tendency to fall off exponentially.

If you go to places like Norway then you'll notice they won't even let people build outside their city proper. Once you get outside Oslo, it turns completely green and there's just road and rail. Almost no houses until you get to small dense towns. In comparison to the USA where the houses go on and on and on and on and on and on. The lots just get bigger and bigger whereas the homes in these other countries tend to stay the same size and so does the property.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#176

Post by ilyagr » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #163

Tangentially related; I can't fathom why the US insists on stop signs and traffic lights everywhere. A neighborhood I used to drive through on my way to work had 4 way stops sprouting up constantly. The massive waste of resources involved in hauling 2 tons of steel and glass down from speed to 0, for _absolutely no reason 99% of the time_, accelerating it back up to speed again, just to do the same, over and over, bo…

I prefer stop signs to roundabouts. In Ireland, I experienced several low-radius roundabouts in succession, and they always made me nauseous.

If roundabouts are made large enough to be pleasant, they are fine but take up a lot of space.

I'm very impressed with countries that slow down traffic by making the street a little narrower.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#177

Post by devmunchies » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #171

devmunchies wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many things that have changed in the last 50 years that there is a a large surface area of changes that could be causing mass hormone imbalance. Plastics, daily dairy consumptions (every meal!), soy, sedentary lifestyle, processed food, lack of minerals in soil/food, not being exposed to natural fungus in soil and nature, not consuming enough fermented foods because we have refrigeration, not enough medi…

Dunno about the benefits of fermented food: oxidized nitrates ain’t great for you.

negative properties doesn't mean there aren't any beneficial properties. maybe fermented food are good for our gut biome or something, which impacts our metabolism and fat levels, which impacts our hormones levels, idk. you're missing the point.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#178

Post by TheGrassyKnoll » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #93

lotsofpulp wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last mile problem can only be solved by eliminating single family detached homes. You can only reduce the amount of energy required to move bodies so much, at some point you have to start reducing the distances traveled.

I'd rather go with the less people travelling further on bikes route. There's a 1:1 ratio between amount of space (and therefor nature) per person, and the distance we're willing to travel on foot/bike/etc.

I rather go with less people...

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#179

Post by refurb » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #9

I appreciate this new concern for microplastics. Since I can remember I've always had a vague fears about using plastic Tupperware and plastic bottle but wasn't sure if it was unfounded. Turns out my (and many others) intuitions were correct.

What were your intuitions?

Right now the research seems to show plastic micro particles show up in a lot of places, but whether that actually causes harm remains to be seen.

Re: Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

#180

Post by refurb » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #12

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there evidence that Tupperware breaks down and gets into food that you store inside it?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/ > Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved > Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released ch…

The dose makes the poison. Saying there are detectable levels of BPA doesn’t tell you much when the lower detection limit is parts per billion or parts per trillion.