It's interesting to me that as soon as EV's are finally seriously becoming a thing, we are told that tire dust, rather than ICE emissions, are really the worst thing possible for the planet (and it's somehow implied that ICE vehicles don't have tires). When somebody points out that ICE vehicles do, in fact, have tires too, EV's are STILL worse because EV's are heavier than the equivalent ICE cars. Strangely, the fact that for years, people have been driving ludicrously overweight vehicles (the Ford F150, weighing in at 4,070 to 5,757 lbs, is the top selling passenger vehicle in the US, and last I checked, it had tires) was never an issue.
It's almost like people are incapable of comprehending that all types of pollution are important, not just one or the other. Exhaust emissions are bad. Tyre pollution is also bad. Reducing one is a good step. Reducing both would be even better.
Many things can be bad at once, and I’m sure tire particles really are bad. It is just weird that in the 137 years ICE cars have been manufactured (again, with tires the whole time), the fact that the tire particles were way worse than all the other things cars spew out went completely unnoticed.
I’m only being partially facetious. Yes I understand cars are now much cleaner than they used to be, so probably in the past tailpipe emissions were the dominant problem. But an awful lot of the articles talking about this are pushing the idea that EVs are WORSE for the environment than ICE cars (so let’s just keep driving our F150s!), which is absolutely untrue. Better is still better, even if it isn’t perfect.
We should push for hovercars
This why so many have always said that EVs are not the solution for climate change, they are and always will be a solution for the auto industry.
This is not the reason why they were saying this. They were saying it for other reasons. They didn't know before anyone else. They merely have one more reason now.
And yet it's the auto industry lobby who's trotting this line out because they're not really ready for EVs and this is a good delaying tactic for them.
It's not, because the same people who said evs are not the solution also say that the solution is accessible public transportation and bikes.
This (microplastics from wheels) is a well known fact in science for quite some time though.
Trains.
Furthermore, death to cars.
Meanwhile Florida, Texas, Ohio are all doing burnouts
bikes even
Man, that would have been great 20 years ago.
If not now, when?
This is mostly just me being a doomer, paraphrasing from The Newsroom.
"Small price to pay for the freedom to travel"
-An actual thing that's been said to me before when I brought up other environmental issues
“Small price to pay for the freedom to travel”
Well, they pay a small price for their freedom to travel. It's everybody else that has to suffer the externalities of their choices.
Let's tax antisocial behavior, so that these externalities are internalized. Carbon tax, vehicle weight per passenger tax, vehicle volume per passenger tax, etc.
'Be careful now, you're starting to sound like a communist.' they say.
Seriously though, you're right, we should do all that. Switching over to EVs won't solve very many problems. Everywhere needs to have fewer vehicles in the road and that's public transit.
Fuck them.
They also call me a communist now because I think a 40 hour work week should put a basic roof (efficiency on your own or maybe a basic 2br with a roomie) over your head no matter what you're doing.
Turns out the "Red Scare™" will always return whenever capitalism starts fraying at the seams to keep people from exploring even the slightest reforms.
40 hour work week
Hell with that, make it more like 20…
Nothing says "freedom" like a tool that costs tens of thousands to buy and thousands every year to maintain and use.
Meanwhile I can amtrak to DC for $30 round trip 🤷
From where?
This statement doesn't make much sense without context.
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It varies a huge amount. You can get DC to NYC tickets for under $50 if you buy at the last second. Most trains don't fill up and they basically give away the remaining seats with like 8 hours to go.
I'll have to remember this 🤔
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58cent is IRS estimate which is under estimating the cost inherently due to state bias.
Also, not even accounting for crazy car prices recently
And parking and sitting in traffic
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What costs are you adding for a train…
Asking for a friend
Sure, but I'm not disclosing my location on Lemmy. 🤷
I'm sure a bit of diddling on their site could give you an idea of how far $X will get you.
Also the traveling part is generally tedious, uncomfortable and boring unless you have a super big luxury car. I'd much rather travel by high-speed rail.
I looove taking the train, I can stand up, move around, chat, eat and drink.
I was hanging out in the Cafe car a few weeks ago on a 9 hr trip playing video games on my laptop. Got chatting with some folks, 3 of us one by one broke out our respective liquors and made a party of it.
Can't do that on I-95.
I was hanging out in the Cafe car a few weeks ago on a 9 hr trip playing video games on my laptop. Got chatting with some folks, 3 of us one by one broke out our respective liquors and made a party of it.
Can't do that on I-95.
sure you can they just take away your driving license after
Only if they catch you!
My friend, allow me to introduce you to the shit show which is the upper level of the 9pm Megabus. I've seen people straight up smoking meth.
Small price to pay for the freedom to travel
my man you go to work and back again what travel
Yep. Whenever I travel I ask around my friend group if anyone is interested and those same people always have a list of excuses as to why they can't take a week to fuck off in NYC.
I really think alot of it is "I can't take my car 😭," cause I've gone with them to things all the time on road trips, but as soon as I'm taking a train the excuses roll in.
For me half the reason to take a trip to NYC is getting to ride the one good train route in the US. And all my stoner friends love the train because they can bring their drugs with them.
100%. I've cut back on canna lately but coming home a few weeks ago a bunch of us hanging out in the Cafe car ended up breaking out our various liquors we were all bringing home and sharing with each other and whoever else wanted in 😂
It's not even a freedom to travel… It's a requirement. You want to live in area where you don't need need a car? Only a few cities in America make that reality possible. If you want/have to live/work anywhere else… You need a car. That's not freedom. Also those places where you don't need a car are very expensive to live in.
Its not a lack of rails and light rails… It's a lack of local transportation that's fast and reliable.
People actually use the bus system in Ann Arbor because it runs on time, frequently and is clean. I'm all for a transportation haven but a lot of cities can't even walk and are trying to run.
Detroits Q Line is a good example of running before you can walk. The bus system is god awful. Late. No shows. Generally unreliable. Then they just slapped a thing on top of it that's probably even less reliable…
It is in fact a privillege to live a normal life in US without a car…
Our freedom to travel was stolen from us and sold back to us
It wasn't the plastic straws after all?
I'm shocked, shocked.Plastic straws are still very harmful for many sea animals and are apart from that entirely unnecessary (unlike tires).
As I read on masto, we should replace the tires with steel to stop the plastic pollution.
Of course to protect the road that would also have to be steel. And we'd need to link all the vehicles together to make best use of the limited steel road surface.
(It's trains)
Steel dust quickly turns to iron oxide in the environment, which is a fairly common natural mineral (it's the reason red clay is red). To be fair, there might still be some slight negative effects to ecosystems which do not naturally have a lot of iron oxide at the surface, but that wouldn't even be a rounding error compared to the harmful environmental effects of tires and asphalt. Also, steel dust is very heavy so there's essentially no chance of it getting into the air and inhaled.
Back in the 1900s we had cars like that they were electric, and didn't run into traffic… I see the tracks for them every time the road is resurfaced.
I have 4 stainless steel straws never going back to that plastic bullshit
I struggle to think of a view where plastic straws are a no no (which I agree) but car tyres aren't. It's both convenience product.
In many places, cars are a necessity because of structural issues that we need to solve. They aren't innately required, but our world is built in such a way to require them.
I'm mostly going for the "entirely unnecessary (unlike tires)" thing, especially given consumption levels. I don't think I would've gotten through a single tyres worth of plastic in straws in my lifetime even if they weren't banned.
Like, sure, there is use cases for tyres even in utopia, hell, a tyreless bicycle sounds shit, but we're talking what, like a percent of what is currently used?
You are correct to a degree, but many places around the world (even in America) have a suburb with a nearby city, and a bus that is mostly empty going from that suburb to said city. Meanwhile, that bus is stuck in car traffic going from where that bus originated (or anywhere on the line) to said city. It gets stuck in the same traffic going back
A lot of it isn't structural. It's cultural, it's people. If you solve "the commute" social problem, the transit problem could be solved.
Some amount of inflatable tires will always be needed and used. Sure, the vast majority of them are also unnecessary, because most cars are, but humanity will obviously always need some vehicles that transport stuff efficiently without tracks. Bicycle tires also use similar materials.
And here I was walking to work trying to suck some coffee through a damp piece of cardboard, while it turns out that the suburban Panzer IV commuters were to blame? What's next?
Can we just get some real public transportation options in the USA? I've visited Washington D.C., Boston, and New York City recently, and I'm in love with the subway (etc). Where I live would still require a car, but afaik, none of the major cities around me have anything more than a lackluster bus system.
Best we can do is another lane on the highway. That should fix the problem!
Ok, hear me out: What if we were to dig a system of narrow tunnels under the city, and then let people drive through them. Of course, cars would need to be on some form of automated tracks to make it safe. Then you could link up multiple cars and make long lines of cars following the tracks to the same destination.
It's a brand new concept, I know, but modern problems require modern solutions. Maybe we can sell hats and flamethrowers to generate support.
(/s in case it wasn't obvious)
This is a great idea! It might work if you give everyone fake steering wheels and pedals.
it would have to be on rails. Sure, buses have fewer wheels per passenger but they are also heavier so go through their tyres much faster. Its probably still a net benefit but it doesnt eliminate the problem.
Its probably still a net benefit
oh god imagine if the math works out that it isn't.
trains, bikes, and sailing ships only.
E-Bikes, maybe. There's argument to be made that given a typical western diet heavy on meat (and not changing that) it's better to just use electricity to power bicycles rather than meat filtered through humans
Sure, buses have fewer wheels per passenger but they are also heavier so go through their tyres much faster.
Per Passenger? A bus weighs like 40,000 pounds at most going by a quick google. The average car in the US weighs about 4,000lbs and the occupancy rate of cars is about 1,5, so 2,666lbs / passenger on a given trip. Every bus that has an average passenger rate of 15 and up beats that.
15 passengers on average seems way higher than most buses I've been on. Maybe during the very busiest times, but buses run all day. The many hours they spend with just four or five people aboard will really tank the average.
Buses also have more tires than cars – usually at least 6, but sometimes 10 or more. I still doubt they're emitting more microplastics than cars per trip but the math isn't so simple.
15 passengers on average seems way higher than most buses I've been on. Maybe during the very busiest times, but buses run all day. The many hours they spend with just four or five people aboard will really tank the average.
I don't wanna say there isn't busses that might producre more microplastic but an average of 15 passengers per bus isn't like some insane goal to achieve, even in the current world, especially once you factor in that there's also times that there's way more than 15 people on one for a given trip
The use of tires will be a daunting thing to change. If somehow we all managed to change to bicycles for instance, there are still tires.
The amount of wear on the tires of a bicycle which let's just assume the heaviest person riding the heaviest e-bike would be a few hundred pounds wearing on the tires? Compared to several tons for an auto pressing down on 4 tires it's a LOT less.
The wear is drastically different, at least.
Probably easier to develop an alternative too when it doesn't need to support two tons.
As per the quote below, a car loses about 0.08g of tread per km.
Compared to a car, a bike tyre is about the same diameter, 10% of the width (~20mm), 28% usable tread depth (~2mm), has 50% less wheels, and can travel 10% the distance (~10000km).
This suggests a (very approximate) tread loss of 0.08 * 10% * 28% * 50% / 10% = ~ 0.01g per km for bicycles.
For replacing longer car journeys less typically travelled by bicycle, rail transport is the best solution and removes the issue of tyre wear.
Quoting [deleted] in r/theydidthemath:
Using the same assumptions as above (215/60R16 tires, 7mm of tread loss over 100,000 km), I estimate the loss of tread by volume from each tire as follows:
Cylinder with a diameter of 664 mm and a height of 215 mm has a volume of 74,412 cm3. Cylinder with a diameter of 664-(2x7)=650 mm and a height of 215 mm has a volume of 71,307 cm3. The volume difference between a new and worn out tire is 3105 cm3.
Typical land to sea ratio of tires is 60-70% land, depending on the type of tire. If we go with an about average value of close to 65% tread, we get the lost rubber volume of about 2000 cm3 or 2,000,000 mm3 over a single tires lifespan.
Each revolution of a tire loses about 0,04 mm3 of tread, which, according to Wolfram Alpha, is a bit less than the volume of a medium grain of sand.
If we look at the entire car with 4 tires over a kilometer of road, we get 80 mm3 or about 0,08 grams of tread lost per car per kilometer.
Your model fails to account for weight of the tyres, which has a big impact. I can’t figure out what that ratio is though.
Forget about the ocean. There is a more pressing matter as they are closer from tires than oceans : our lungs !!
Yes but no, because from the ocean it gets into the water cycle, and into dirt, plants and animals, and we end up ingesting it too.
Ocean microplastic is much more irreversible than atmospheric one.
A true recipe for ecoanxiety.
"
but Da CAR gives me personal freedom"Yeah the freedom to choke on loans, exhaust and tire dust
This reminds me of these wise words:
"A person who runs in front of a car gets tired. A person who runs behind a car gets exhausted."
:)
If only we could have a one company pick people up and deliver them to another point or work from home and have our stuff delivered.
The thing that picks people up could even have metal wheels as it follows a fixed route, and run on metal roads
Nah, I'd rather not give up my personal vehicle. Frankly, biking is so much better than all the alternatives when possible.
A lot of trains allow riders to bring their bikes onboard, no need to give it up.
Definitely not giving up, was just making a bit of a bait-and-switch joke about how so many people feel like they give up their "freedom" by giving up their cars.
In reality I take my bike with me everywhere and love it when public transport is accommodating to this.
I mentioned this in a discussion a while back. Tires are a huge problem for society.
You know, I'd say we had a good run but honestly I just don't feel like lying to make myself feel better. This shit sucks.
In the relatively short time humans have been on this planet, we've done an impressive job leaving a mark on this planet, pretty much exclusively in a bad way. If that's the goal, we achieved it.
That was always the thing I was wondering about. Where was the origin of these microplastics. Surely it wasn't all just those little beads that were in soap and shampoo
Some of it is due to washing clothes made of nylon or polyester, and of course that water eventually will go into the ocean.
The other source aside from tires and those beads is all the other plastics that we use. Especially when exposed to the elements, all(?) plastics eventually break down into tiny particles. This includes all synthetic fibers, by the way. I've seen studies that show how much synthetic clothes release microplastics each time we wash them.
That's a real bummer because lots of my clothes are synthetic fabrics and I really like them compared to cotton. Sigh.
Sorry to hear. I prefer natural fibers, so it doesn't affect me that much.
