A new study led by an international team of scientists highlights tire particles (TPs) as the leading contributor to microplastics and calls for urgent, targeted research to address their unique environmental and health risks.
Accounting for nearly one-third of all microplastics,
Reducing the size and weight of a car goes a long way for environmental impact. People seem to think it’s just less fuel being burned.
In reality, there is a reduction of almost every consumable. Smaller tyres. Less tyre wear. Less brake dust. Less oil used. Less chemicals when washing. Less wear on the road surface. Less manufacturing emissions. Less disposal when it’s done.
The relationship isn’t linear either. Doubling the weight of the car results in about 10x the surface wear.
I like to remind people of these things when they have a massive SUV but claim it is “good for the planet” just because it is electric.
No car is good for the planet. Some are better than others but they are all bad and destructive compared to nearly any alternative mode of transportation.
This reminds me of those solar cars. https://wonderfulengineering.com/family-solar-car-stella-runs-completely-on-solar-energy/
These news are becoming tiresome
But EVs are supposed to solve everything!
Edit for the downvoters: I’m not against EVs as a replacement for ICE, but they’re not an endgame solution. We need to reduce the number of cars, period, whether they’re ICE or not.
Evs are better than ICE but just changing every car to an EV is not a solution and will solve very little, it only really helps with the energy parts of the problem. It doesn’t even address the amount of land we waste and pave for cars. People call me anti EV and a “climate change” denier whenever I talk about how EVs are not a good solution, despite me having gone to school for environmental technology and being far more knowledgeable on climate change and other environmental destructions.
The industry has really tricked most people into thinking the tail pipe is the only issue with a car. The EV isn’t here to save the planet, it is here to save the car industry.
Why would you want for electric vehicles to replace Inter City Express trains?
It’s an abomination unto the Lord
-Leviticus 3:10 to Yuma
Nope! Instead, they save car industry profits!
Anyone want to team up to start up an organic tire manufacturer with all natural rubber tires?
Cars won’t be gotten rid of entirely. But we can reduce their usage. Rideshare systems (non-evil ones, not just Uber/Lyft; a membership system has been tried in Europe and works well) could help reduce the need for cars.
No
You have to vulcanize it to make it usable. That also makes it not degrade in the environment.
We can’t house everyone on earth in adequate accommodations lol
I doubt plebs will be riding on latex tires any time soon
If only we had the technology to put cars on metal tracks, oh and we could add power lines so that electric cars wouldn’t need batteries. Hmm, next we could link the cars together so that only the first car has to overcome wind resistance
Wonder what environmental impact of trains is. I assume there must be some.
The trick with the train is there is less impact per person serviced compared to the car. Trains are also more fair to more people and can be way faster when built correctly. Rails also have significantly less friction compared to tires and roads. Trains are also safer as conflict points are more controlled among other things.
If we’re just looking at the grinding of the metal wheels against the rails, it’s very little. Some metallic particles are produced in the normal wear but ferrous metals easily react and oxidize into more inert and normal forms for life.
Anything modern human does will have “carbon footprint” as corpos like to say it. But a lot of it is outside of person level control.
Just picking your poison to be less toxic. Still worth it but it ain’t the final solution, just a better one
