Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 635 posts

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#581

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gdilla wrote: post #575
jeromegv wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we also built our society to make the car more convenient. Can’t remember the ratio but the amount of parking space available per car is absolutely insane. That means a relatively cheap access to put your giant car almost anywhere you go. Most cities are built around that idea and that makes other form of transportations almost impractical. So yes the car is convenient but we also built many things to make it mor…

800 parking spots per car in the US.

Source? A quick Google turns up 8 as a common number, not 800.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#582

Post by sokoloff »

gdilla wrote: post #575
jeromegv wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we also built our society to make the car more convenient. Can’t remember the ratio but the amount of parking space available per car is absolutely insane. That means a relatively cheap access to put your giant car almost anywhere you go. Most cities are built around that idea and that makes other form of transportations almost impractical. So yes the car is convenient but we also built many things to make it mor…

800 parking spots per car in the US.

Does "800 parking spots per car" pass the sniff test?

There's order of magnitude 1 car per US resident. Does it seem like there are 800 parking spots per US resident? A quarter of a trillion total parking spots?

I doubt my car parks in 800 unique places (including different street parking spots as unique) in a given year.

On the smaller end, call each space 16'x8'. That puts a little more than 2% of the entire land mass of the US as parking spaces (assuming I didn't get any of the exponents wrong).

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#583

Post by cush »

michaelteter wrote: post #506
crazygringo wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment Is it? I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. Natural rubber tires still produce tons of dust, I can't find any reference to it being less harmful in our lungs, and even natural tire rubber seems to biodegrade on the order…

> I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. I'm sorry, but the parent poster said they have been studying in this domain for 4+ years (including PhD research), and you present doubt because your Google searches are unconvincing? What would it take to convince you? You do realize that what you find on the first 10 pages of Google (or other) search engines could be junk or intentionally targeted misinformation…

This is the internet. Doubt everything, always.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#584

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #371
kylebenzle wrote: post #15

I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working solutions to the tire dust issue but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get funding. A Billion dollar industry and NO ONE cares about cleaning it up if it means increasing costs by 5% or more. It has been WELL KNOWN for 50 years! We are basically aerosolizing carbon in MASSIVE amounts right where we live and work.…

> the solution is natural rubber, which costs slight more than synthetic rubber but lasts longer. So its better for consumers, cheaper all around, and 1,000x better for the environment Is it? I'm Googling but can't find any evidence for that. Natural rubber tires still produce tons of dust, I can't find any reference to it being less harmful in our lungs, and even natural tire rubber seems to biodegrade on the order…

[deleted]

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#585

Post by cush »

kylebenzle wrote: post #15

I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working solutions to the tire dust issue but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get funding. A Billion dollar industry and NO ONE cares about cleaning it up if it means increasing costs by 5% or more. It has been WELL KNOWN for 50 years! We are basically aerosolizing carbon in MASSIVE amounts right where we live and work.…

I wonder if there’s a conflict between companies being willing and able to produce natural rubber tires yet marketing them would also implicate themselves in knowingly destroying the environment. It’s a tough line to straddle.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#586

Post by BowBun »

seb1204 wrote: post #329
BowBun wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Even solar + wind - when the buzz started it was all rainbows and butterflies because we found a silver bullet to energy! There is no such thing as free lunch. If you start absorbing massive amounts of solar, you will have some effect on the environment that we have absolutely no clue about. Same with interfering with wind patterns and ocean currents, which would happen with energy generation at true humanity…

Not sure what to make of your comment. Are you suggesting we don't use any technology? All our actions have consequences on the planet. However your comment seems to suggest that by adopting wind and solar we are buying into an issue we would not have otherwise.

Absolutely not, I can't believe you would take my healthy skepticism as a dismissal of technology. As I said, critical thinking is gone.

I suggest nothing other than what I said - discussions around new technologies, particularly those in response to perceived crises, rarely receive the scrutiny they deserve and rarely show both sides of the coin. This makes me immediately suspicious for the same reasons history has already shown time and time again.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#587

Post by BowBun »

badtension wrote: post #546
BowBun wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Even solar + wind - when the buzz started it was all rainbows and butterflies because we found a silver bullet to energy! There is no such thing as free lunch. If you start absorbing massive amounts of solar, you will have some effect on the environment that we have absolutely no clue about. Same with interfering with wind patterns and ocean currents, which would happen with energy generation at true humanity…

Not sure if absorbing solar in particular has some unforeseen consequences but I saw an interesting article the other day: Tidal Energy Is Not Renewable https://cs.stanford.edu/people/zjl/tide.html We really have to think this all through before jumping 100% on any particular bandwagon. Researching, testing, seeing how it goes and adjusting is a must.

Absolutely agreed. Beyond the need in the name of science, you're more likely to bring every onboard with an idea if you transparently study and share the pros and cons.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#588

Post by BowBun »

artursapek wrote: post #565
hedora wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, that’s not true. The large amount of low end torque leads to different rubber, etc. Also, due to range anxiety, they tend to use low rolling resistance tires that wear more. I spend more on tires than electricity for my EV, so I can imagine someone offering low efficiency / low wear tires as an option. The above leads to about 20% more tire dust on average.

Sadly HN downvote me anyway lol

Yours wasn't a really substantive answer. The next person provided more details and didn't add 'lol' at the end of his short statement. Just some feedback if you want people to accept your points more often!

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#589

Post by afuchs »

badtension wrote: post #579
paulmd wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because your friends can easily be 10-30 miles away and only accessible via shared roadways with 55mph road traffic. There are no cross country bike routes here. Building around roads results in everything being pushed farther away and that includes other people’s homes too.

Fair point about shared roadways that probably split communities. Do kids attending the same school really live that far apart? Seems like a very long distance, especially in a suburbian neighbourhood.

That is my experience in the East coast US. Here, the suburbs are very spread out, with amenities 15-20 minutes away by car. There are older suburbs where that is not true, but that's more of an exception. Housing in those older suburbs costs more than the newer more spread out developments and there are fewer of them than the newer more spread out ones.

Typically, those old suburbs were originally built around train stations or street car lines, which influenced their design. The newer ones were designed around access by car and zoning prevents any non residential land uses nearby.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#590

Post by badpun »

lazide wrote: post #566
badpun wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. But it wouldn't be a problem to carry even 8-10 kg in a backpack instead of just 3-4 kg. In fact, it's a recommended form of cardiovascular excercise (it's called "rucking").

Definitely no kids. And since when is rucking only 10kg? That’s just going for a walk? Rucking has always been 40+ kg and involved some kind of serious terrain where I’m from?

That's for enthusiasts (super fit people)? From health benefits perspective for average person, what I've heard is that it's enough for the weight to trigger accelerated heart rate, heavier breathing, sweating etc. when walking. 10-15 kg supposedly should do it for most people.
Post reply on HN