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Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics, Study Finds
(www.thedrive.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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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 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.
I have 4 stainless steel straws never going back to that plastic bullshit
What are the odds that a PR group, well aware of the damage of tyres, spun the focus to target small consumable plastics?
Don't look at cars, look at the image of turtles and straws, seagulls and can rings, and porpoises mistaking bags for jellyfish.
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?