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Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

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Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#331

Post by kmeisthax »

valianteffort wrote: post #276
dlahoda wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV bikes sure. price and weight of good EV bike dropped for last 5 years.

I don't know where you live but everything is too far apart in American suburbs. How you would fix that without tearing it all down? And it's totally impractical for transporting a family around. Road tripping. Visiting far away family. Day at the lake or beach. Going camping. How do you convince people to give all of that up and just be content with whatever is 15min away.

You start by not making the problem worse. Stop building stroads[0]. Liberalize the zoning code and allow mixed-use development. Get rid of parking minimums.

The upside of how sparse American suburbs are is that we can repurpose all the junk/wasted land with normal market incentives. Roads can be thinned and the land handed back to the owners of that land, along with the setbacks that are used to force people to maintain water-intensive lawns[1]. Upzoned buildings can be redeveloped to higher density or turned into small commercial stores as market forces dictate. Anyone who wants to hold out can still do so.

None of this requires absolutely banning cars[2]. People will stop driving as cars become less necessary for daily suburban life. Road trips can still happen. So instead of families with three or four cars, maybe they only have one or two. As car infrastructure is used less, it can be repurposed for transit networks that don't suck - i.e. BRT, light rail, or tram systems with dedicated rights of way.

"15 minute city" doesn't mean "you should only ever travel 15 minutes on foot and anything further will be stopped by the pollution police". It means "building a city so that everything you need is closer and more convenient".

[0] Surface street / highway combos, i.e. roads with 3 lanes on each side, highway speed traffic, no pedestrian infrastructure, and business access. They try to do everything and fail at everything.

[1] Incidentally this was sold as a way to stop communism, somehow

[2] OK, but can we still at least ban the giant Escalade mega-SUVs that let you run down like ten kids without even seeing them

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#332

Post by crazygringo »

alt227 wrote: post #175
kylebenzle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question! Its super simple, it is ONLY the length of the hydrocarbon chain, a better quality natural rubber has really long chains (10,000+ atoms long) that last a LONG time and are VERY stretchy. Synthetic rubber (or plastic) is shorter (1,000 atoms long) and doesn't last as long. Thats it, it is the exact same "product" just a chain that gets longer and longer and changes its physical properties as it grows.

Genuinely interested here. If natural rubber and plastic are exactly the same thing, then why is natural rubber being advocated as a much more environmentally sound alternative? Would'nt the dust from natural rubber tyres be just as problematic as the plastic is now?

Yes this is exactly my question as well.

Is the dust just as bad for the environment, but natural rubber wears more slowly due to the longer chains?

Or is the dust somehow a less harmful kind of dust?

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#333

Post by bmitc »

jayd16 wrote: post #304
badtension wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why so many people are cautious about "EVs to save us all", to put it mildly. We are so focused on climate change and greenhouse gases that we do not see a lot of other issues and may exacerbate some of them in the process of decarbonisation.

This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life and the difference that clean air standards make is obvious. The black dust isn't just tire and brake dust. It's also soot and it used to be much much worse. Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when we're done with ICE noise and exhaust.

> This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think.

I really don't think it is. We're thrusting ourselves into just new problems. Yes, we move away from old problems that gas-powered cars have, but we move into new problems. For one, EVs perpetuate the idea of the car, which is perhaps the most dangerous part. Then, there's all sorts of new things like building out the infrastructure required for EVs and mining the new materials. For example, have you looked into the areas where lithium mining occurs? It is not a clean process and brings its own new problems, especially for the local people. You have foreign owned and operated companies move in and suck out manufactured value from the land, all the while polluting the local ecosystem. It's oil all over again.

It isn't contrarianism to point out that a solution is not the solution everyone thinks it is. Yes, we should probably switch to EVs, but we should be switching away from cars as a whole. But we're not. Cars are selling more than ever. It's not contrarianism to simply look at facts rather than hype.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#334

Post by bmitc »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #319
jayd16 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life and the difference that clean air standards make is obvious. The black dust isn't just tire and brake dust. It's also soot and it used to be much much worse. Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when we're done with ICE noise and exhaust.

Generally agreed, but the noise from cars is mostly friction and turbulence (and honking/sirens). Switching to electric won't solve that.

> the noise from cars is mostly friction and turbulence

Agreed. I can't even hear the engine in my car on the highway over tire and wind noise.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#335

Post by sokoloff »

bmitc wrote: post #333
jayd16 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life and the difference that clean air standards make is obvious. The black dust isn't just tire and brake dust. It's also soot and it used to be much much worse. Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when we're done with ICE noise and exhaust.

> This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I really don't think it is. We're thrusting ourselves into just new problems. Yes, we move away from old problems that gas-powered cars have, but we move into new problems. For one, EVs perpetuate the idea of the car, which is perhaps the most dangerous part. Then, there's all sorts of new things like building out the infrastructure required for EVs and mining the new…

Cars are selling, despite their high economic price, because they're incredibly useful.

Make competing modes of transit at least one of more useful at no more cost or no less utility but at a lower cost and people will switch incredibly quickly. That's a tall order, because the modern automobile is a wonder of transport speed, comfort, and convenience.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#336

Post by shepardrtc »

olalonde wrote: post #217
kylebenzle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! All the big tire companies, Goodyear, Michelin and Firestone have a "natural rubber" development department and every couple years they come out with a "green tire" which they quickly drop and forget about. As for the "technology" of natural rubber, yes again, ALL military aircraft tires are only natural rubber, people know, when it matters use ONLY natural rubber. Again, we use choose to use and pollute with sy…

This is a naive and incorrect view of economics. Tire manufacturers employ synthetic rubber because that's what consumers want (probably because it's cheaper even when accounting for the lower longevity?). They do not just get to dictate which products enter the market. Which makes me highly doubt your claim that natural rubber tires are both superior AND cheaper. If you are right about that, I'm sure there are VCs w…

That's the point, natural rubber tires are slightly more expensive. I think the parent said it was like 5% more somewhere above? Tire companies will go the cheapest route every time, so it's up to the government to make it more expensive to create synthetic rubber tires. Maybe start charging them for ocean cleanup.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#337

Post by wizofaus »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #319
jayd16 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sentiment is just contrarianism, I think. I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life and the difference that clean air standards make is obvious. The black dust isn't just tire and brake dust. It's also soot and it used to be much much worse. Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when we're done with ICE noise and exhaust.

Generally agreed, but the noise from cars is mostly friction and turbulence (and honking/sirens). Switching to electric won't solve that.

I would think having a vehicle be entirely electric must allow more options in terms of car body shape and even tyre shape/material that could possible reduce noise (and particulate) pollution even further. And certainly if we could reduce the vehicle weight (I gather the current generation of EVs typically weigh 25%+ more than their ICE equivalents - and cars have generally been getting heavier over the last couple of decades anyway, which is a trend that we desperately need to reverse, and won't happen without legislation). Having said that, as a cyclist the idea of not being able to hear cars around me is somewhat disconcerting.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#338

Post by CableNinja »

Animatronio wrote: post #252
desas wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because nearly no-one wants to walk to the store, walk home, walk back to the store to return the cart and then walk home again. I never drive to the store and I still wouldn't do that.

You'd keep the cart until next time you need it.

Thats just buying a shopping cart with extra steps

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#339

Post by oats »

avalys wrote: post #309
trgn wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bold ideas are welcome. Burrying heads in the sand not an option. It's simple. It's more mobility options, especially safe active transportation. EVs are still cars. It's a change in the margin. What is really needed is people biking, walking for their daily errands instead of using a car. As for the safe part, it does not require anything special. The aspirational world of the future will be made real with bollard…

You're basically saying that you want to force everyone to live in a city - a super dense developed area where all your daily needs are within walking distance. Not everyone wants to live in a city!

What? How do you derive that reading from the parent comment?

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#340

Post by arghwhat »

badtension wrote: post #249
mlsu wrote: post #166

Has anyone here ever lived near a freeway or even moderately busy road? I made the mistake of renting next to the freeway. Noise was perfectly tolerable, but I could not use my back porch, because after just a few weeks, everything had a fine coating of black dust. I could not keep my windows open in the summer. I was certainly breathing this vile shit the entire time I lived there. This doesn't surprise me in the le…

That's why so many people are cautious about "EVs to save us all", to put it mildly. We are so focused on climate change and greenhouse gases that we do not see a lot of other issues and may exacerbate some of them in the process of decarbonisation.

EV's will not save us all, but every combustion engine still running is actively killing us.

Would be better to walk, bike, take public transport or similar or course. And if your area makes that not viable, consider fixing that.

(All the famed bicycle paths in Copenhagen are relatively new - they can be added anywhere.)

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