Tire wear causes massive pollution... now what?

[RedDevil]

If it were that simple.
Tires used to be constructed from vulcanized rubber, soot, steel wire and fabric.
Nowadays most tires have very little rubber in them, if any.
It is all silicone and plastic.
They are stronger, last longer, have more grip, deteriorate less and smell better. All great.
Was this too good to be true, or not?

I wonder what will come out of this.
Are we going to select tires based on microplastic content?
Do tires with high plastic levels get banned?
Can we put a waste efficiency on tires, miles per dead polar bear style?
What are the alternatives?

Most likely nothing much changes except that tires will get more expensive...

[redpoint5]

I'm with Balto on this one; we've got bigger fish to fry.

People live longer than ever, so whatever harm we are doing to the environment isn't counteracting the progress we're making in standards of living and medical care.

A real threat is heart disease and type II diabetes. If the lifespan average ever decreases, you can bet it's due to obesity and diet, and not microplastics, GMO, or global warming.

[RedDevil]

You can kill any discussion by mentioning issues that are bigger.

I guess it is OK to roll coal because it kills less people than heart disease.
IS kills less people than heart disease, etc.
(Marine wildlife, if it had knowledge of the issue, might value its own mass extinction of higher importance than human heart disease btw)

Your choice of tire will have very little effect on heart disease, but it could effect microplastics pollution - more than anything else.

If it is true and if we had the data to make that choice.
Is it?
Do we really have a choice?
I'd love to ignore it all, but I'd rather be certain it is indeed doing no harm.

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I'm with Balto on this one; we've got bigger fish to fry.

People live longer than ever, so whatever harm we are doing to the environment isn't counteracting the progress we're making in standards of living and medical care.

A real threat is heart disease and type II diabetes. If the lifespan average ever decreases, you can bet it's due to obesity and diet, and not microplastics, GMO, or global warming.

As with most things, it depends on your perspective.

Short-term, sure, heart disease is a more proximate problem than some environmental pollution if our goal is keeping currently-living humans alive. But long-term, we are at risk of making that environment uninhabitable in large swaths to humans as a whole, and that risk increases with every resource-consuming, pollution-producing human life we prolong (say, by mitigating the consequences of heart disease)--good for the individual in the short-term, bad for the species in the long-term. To suggest that because someone like RedDevil concerns himself with an issue of the latter (and note that he didn't say anything about the former; he could be fighting heart disease or any number of the "bigger [by which you mean "more-proximate"] fish" just as avidly, for all we know) he is a victim of "pollution propaganda," as Balto put it, seems pretty knee-jerk reactionary to me.

[CapriRacer]

Isn't the real question: What's the alternative?

Oh and I want to correct one misconception. Tires are still made of pretty much the same materials they were 40 years ago. Carbon black (Soot?), natural rubber, synthetic rubber (No plastics, and silicone rubber if used at all, is used in very small quantities), steel, and fabric are still the major materials used. They just use less of them, because they've spent a lot of time and effort to make their designs more efficient (and less costly!)

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by CapriRacer

Isn't the real question: What's the alternative?

Contraception.
Walking.
Short commutes.
Light vehicles with little light tires and slow wear.
Easy on the gas; easy on the brakes; easy around the corners.
Less "recreational" tearing around i.e. trip combine or maybe even get up off butt once in a while i.e. Don't drive a special trip three blocks to the store/post office/gas station.
Run 'em until the cords are showing.

[gone-ot]

...back to steel-wheels and rail-road tracks?

[RedDevil]

Dump that heavy tire consuming Tesla Model S for a tiny eco friendly VW Up! Diesel?

[gone-ot]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Dump that heavy tire consuming Tesla Model S for a tiny eco friendly VW Up! Diesel?

Playing the "Devil's Advocate" here: Then, you'd be just substituting diesel combustion particulates for rubber wear particulates (wink,wink).

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Playing the "Devil's Advocate" here: Then, you'd be just substituting diesel combustion particulates for rubber wear particulates (wink,wink).

Yes, but with a VW, you're only required to report 1/40th of the actual particulates!