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Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

e360.yale.edu

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Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#91

Post by ars »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #75
ars wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a playground has toxic material, then the playground is doing it wrong, not the parent. And yes, it's a full time job (at certain ages), and no it's hardly the primary responsibility, it's one of many.

If your child is putting part of the playground into their mouth, you are doing it wrong, not the playground. And I think you misread; I said it was one of the primary responsibilities of a parent to keep toxic things out of your child's mouth.

> If your child is putting part of the playground into their mouth, you are doing it wrong, not the playground.

Apparently you've never met an infant.

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#92

Post by liquidpele »

tzs wrote: post #79
liquidpele wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mmmm, wouldn’t say they’re inert… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Reef

That looks like it failed because the bands that were supposed to keep the bundles of tires together corroded. The tires then were free to move around in the currents, which destroyed any life that had been growing on them and prevented any new life from attaching. It also let them collide with natural reefs and damage them.

Hmm, I remember reading about it leaching chemicals too, but guess that’s not in the wiki so maybe wasn’t sourced /shrug

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#93

Post by WendyTheWillow »

ars wrote: post #91
WendyTheWillow wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your child is putting part of the playground into their mouth, you are doing it wrong, not the playground. And I think you misread; I said it was one of the primary responsibilities of a parent to keep toxic things out of your child's mouth.

> If your child is putting part of the playground into their mouth, you are doing it wrong, not the playground. Apparently you've never met an infant.

I have and when they try to put recycled tire in their mouths, I stop them.

It is not a tenable position to suggest that children will unavoidably poison themselves, and that's just part of life...

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#94

Post by notacoward »

robertlagrant wrote: post #90
notacoward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did that bike get to you? How did the food get to your grocery store before you rode there? (Hint: it's not trains and boats. Go watch the traffic on a highway some time and you'll be disabused of that notion.) How did all of the transport involved in your furniture's manufacture and final delivery occur? Even if we completely got rid of passenger cars, there would still be plenty of tires on the road and there w…

> some people here say that kind of thing with no irony whatsoever Well, if that person appears, then this would be a good reply to them. Well, actually it'd be pretty heavy-handed and unconvincing, but still. You know.

At least I was trying to contribute something besides low-effort snark and insults.

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#95

Post by Retric »

hankman86 wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that we can’t quickly transition, it’s that this isn’t dangerous enough to force a rapid change. If this was killing millions of people we could do something extreme like rapidly swap to dual use vehicles with road tires that can operate on rails. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_track It’s worth remembering how quickly large scale shifts like using private cars and highway infrastructure happened in th…

Tyres don’t last forever. With regulatory intervention in place, tyre manufacturers will bring products to market that lower or eliminate hazardous emissions. This problem could be solved in less than a decade.

Not without some major sacrifices. Rubber is about as benign as anything else that’s going to provide traction in a wide range of weather conditions on current roads. Steel wheels provide poor traction and lots of road noise, to get both grip and reasonable levels of durability you end up with some flexible solid that breaks apart into tiny bits that are hazardous to inhale.

You need to change something more fundamental than the tire design to make dramatic improvements.

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#96

Post by notacoward »

foxes wrote: post #88
hedora wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, we’d need to demolish lots of buildings, including whole towns. Buildings and construction have 2x the environmental impact of cars.

No, you need buildings to live in, cars are probably not necessary for the majority of the population w good infra.

We need buildings to live in, but not the ones we have. To create places where people can walk or ride to everything they need in their daily life, many existing structures will need to be re-purposed. And it turns out that it's very hard to turn commercial into residential.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/office-space/

And that's just the building part. You also have to deal with the fact that cities are already overstressed, creating ecological disasters as soon as you go outside of the privileged core. Don't look at walkable Manhattan or Brooklyn without also looking at uber-ugly Bronx or Newark, which have to exist to serve those central cores. Or the dumps all over New York state. Or the toxic plumes in the air and water. The transit system, the water and sewage, trash removal, etc. would all creak under the strain of even more population, not to mention the problem of increased demand making housing even more unaffordable for all but the most privileged. Repeat for LA, Houston, Chicago, etc. No, "everyone move to the mega-city" is not the solution some think it is. The fact is that big cities aren't free of these problems; they just export them elsewhere.

It actually turns out that it would be a lot easier to convert residential in commercial than the other way around, in suburbs and small towns where they are. There's still lots of complexity, of course. You have to fix zoning. You have to make that "good infrastructure" work in many places instead of a few. You have to convince people to pay for it, and yes, there will still be a lot of tearing down and rebuilding with all of the environmental costs that entails. As GP mentioned. It's not easy by any means, but creating less car-centric environments this way is more feasible than mass migration to cities and more sustainable too. Some day cars will not be necessary for the majority of the population, I really do hope we get there in my lifetime, but that day is not today and getting there will take orders of magnitude more effort than the "abolish cars now" crowd seems capable of imagining.

Magic-wand thinking doesn't get us anywhere. Practical, incremental improvements do. And reducing particulates from tires is one of those.

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#97

Post by ars »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #93
ars wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your child is putting part of the playground into their mouth, you are doing it wrong, not the playground. Apparently you've never met an infant.

I have and when they try to put recycled tire in their mouths, I stop them. It is not a tenable position to suggest that children will unavoidably poison themselves, and that's just part of life...

Too late - they already did it. Unless you are implying you hover over them no matter where they go.

Most parents will sit on the side and watch their kids. They can remove the tire material from their mouths, but they can't stop it from entering in the first place.

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#98

Post by DANmode »

roflchoppa wrote: post #39

Is there a place where I can lab test my soil? Just over our fence is a main road, we grow a bunch of veggies on our side of the fence. I wonder what’s being accumulated into our veggies.

You may have better luck testing your resulting crop.

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#99

Post by paulryanrogers »

kazinator wrote: post #84
haileys wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What car owners (EV or otherwise) can do to relieve their conscience is to use tyres with the smallest possible dimensions Even better would be to drive the car less and use an e-bike for most trips instead. Most bike tyres weigh less in total than the annual emissions of a set of car tyres according to the article.

If you want your shit actually not to smell, you better make it a pedal-powered bike. With those German-made Continentals made of dandelion root, I hasten to add. (See article.)

Progress can also be made in small steps

Re: Evidence mounts on toxic pollution from tires

#100

Post by seoulmetro »

haileys wrote: post #77
hankman86 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, EVs often use regenerative breaking (“one pedal driving”). I have made it a habit to engage this as often as possible, avoiding to use the brakes. I wonder if this results in fewer sharp stops and is easier on the tyres. What car owners (EV or otherwise) can do to relieve their conscience is to use tyres with the smallest possible dimensions. This should reduce the amount of particle emissions from tyre a…

> What car owners (EV or otherwise) can do to relieve their conscience is to use tyres with the smallest possible dimensions Even better would be to drive the car less and use an e-bike for most trips instead. Most bike tyres weigh less in total than the annual emissions of a set of car tyres according to the article.

Even better, don't have kids.

The "even better" argument is pretty bad for 9/10 people. Cars are great pieces of technology, the same way air conditioners are great.

You just made a suggestion akin to fridge usage and instead opting to just eat room temperature food.

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