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Car tires biggest likely source of microplastics in California coastal waters

latimes.com

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

#201

Post by RandomInteger4 »

jartelt wrote: post #160
tedsanders wrote: post #6

This is one reason why I don't like living near freeways, especially near on-ramps, off-ramps, and interchanges. Car pollution isn't just tailpipe emissions - I believe a lot of airborne particulates come from tires and brakes (especially during acceleration, deceleration, and turning). https://www.cdc.gov/air/particulate_matter.html

California air quality regulators have stated that we shouldn't have any housing within 500 feet of freeways. Living near freeways increases your risk of a host of negative health effects (asthma, heart issues, etc). https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-freeway-pollu...

Maybe California should worry about having adequate affordable housing before worrying about where said housing is located.

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

#202

Post by beatgammit »

refurb wrote: post #179
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.

I'm guessing the vast majority goes through the digestive tract without any issues, and whatever ends up in our bloodstream gets filtered out like anything else in our system. Personally, I'm not worried about it.

I definitely think it's something that should be studied more though.

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

#204

Post by colordrops »

refurb wrote: post #179
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.

Intuition was that I am ingesting plastic or chemicals that leech out of the plastic when using plastic containers. I don't need evidence as to whether that actually causes harm. I need evidence that it doesn't cause harm. I prefer not to ingest artificial substances unintentionally.

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

#205

Post by sjg007 »

tedsanders wrote: post #6

This is one reason why I don't like living near freeways, especially near on-ramps, off-ramps, and interchanges. Car pollution isn't just tailpipe emissions - I believe a lot of airborne particulates come from tires and brakes (especially during acceleration, deceleration, and turning). https://www.cdc.gov/air/particulate_matter.html

You don't want to live within 5 miles of a freeway or major road really..

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

#206

Post by zaroth »

megaremote wrote: post #189
zaroth wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$38 billion a year in sales taxes from new and used automobiles and services. $66 billion a year in use taxes including fuel, excise, and registration. That’s just the direct revenue. If you want to include externalities, you also have to include economic activity enabled by these investments, and the taxes on those activities. Just the auto sector alone produces $60 billion of income tax revenue for state and Federa…

Road crashes cost the U.S. $230.6 billion per year, or an average of $820 per person. https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

Actually it’s much worse than that. $277 billion is the economic cost of car accidents. The cost including lost wages and human suffering is estimated at $871 billion per year. [1]

There’s a difference between direct revenue & expenses and second-order effects.

As a second order effect, roads are necessary for something on the order of $10 trillion of economic activity in the US.

It’s a high price to pay to be sure, for the modern world. I look forward to self driving technology significantly reducing that number over the next 10-15 years.

[1] - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/motor-vehicle-crashes-u-...

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

#207

Post by jumpingmice »

manigandham wrote: post #198
technofiend wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not convinced trains would be viable economically like they are in Japan. In my opinion I think rail would displace a great deal of airline traffic because air travel security is such a chore, airlines have done their very best to squeeze out every last nickel and concerns about how green air travel is or is not. Add in the fact that there is far more room per passenger in a train and with dining cars (which are…

Current technologies are too far behind in speed though. Passengers will trade better wifi, food, space, etc, in exchange for longer travel times but only up to a point. If a New York to LA trip goes from 5 to 25 hours then it's no longer viable. Unfortunately the radius that trains can be competitive barely reaches from LA to SF.

This is such a tired argument and reflects your superficial comprehension of this topic. Yes, NY to LA is too far for rail service. It is the same distance from Paris to Moscow. Nobody takes trains between Paris and Moscow. However the territory between Paris and Moscow, including both Paris and Moscow, enjoy very robust rail service. The fact that the USA happens to be a large and unified political jurisdiction in no way detracts from the fact that we have local and regional opportunities to establish passenger rail networks.

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

#208

Post by manigandham »

jumpingmice wrote: post #207
manigandham wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current technologies are too far behind in speed though. Passengers will trade better wifi, food, space, etc, in exchange for longer travel times but only up to a point. If a New York to LA trip goes from 5 to 25 hours then it's no longer viable. Unfortunately the radius that trains can be competitive barely reaches from LA to SF.

This is such a tired argument and reflects your superficial comprehension of this topic. Yes, NY to LA is too far for rail service. It is the same distance from Paris to Moscow. Nobody takes trains between Paris and Moscow. However the territory between Paris and Moscow, including both Paris and Moscow, enjoy very robust rail service. The fact that the USA happens to be a large and unified political jurisdiction in n…

Since you have a new account, I'll vouch for your comment to keep it alive, but please get rid of that disparaging attitude on HN.

If you're going within a city, then home->dest time is roughly equal to home->station->train->station->dest, so if you're going to use a car anyway then you might as well just drive all the way, with more comfort, privacy, and convenience. Stations within walking distance are not realistic except in very dense urban areas like NY (which already has subways).

If you're going between cities, traffic is actually not much of an issue so it's again the same equation. Once distance increases to the point of a train being faster (even with stops), air travel then starts to become a better option.

Rail requires density. American cities are very spread out and internally sparse internally. Last mile is a serious problem, and that's before considering politics, real-estate, security and defense issues, pricing models, taxes, and other factors. Meanwhile roads are cheap and give people ultimate flexibility.

We would all love better transport, but pretending it's simple just because some other country somewhere has some trains isn't very useful.

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

#209

Post by whenchamenia »

undersuit wrote: post #129
reaperducer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably from tetraethyl lead, which wasn’t banned in common fuels until the 70’s in the US. Except in California, which had leaded fuel well into the 90's for rich people's collector cars. Another example of the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do sorts of things that happen in California.

Yep, California banned leaded fuel for automotives in 1992, 4 years before the United States federal government followed up. https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-takes-final-step-ph...

Don't forget all piston powered aircraft flying today!
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