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Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics (www.thedrive.com)

submitted 1 year ago by haxor@derp.foo to c/hackernews@derp.foo

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[–] 30mag@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Indeed, the scale of these emissions is significant. Particulate emissions from tires and brakes, particularly in the PM2.5 and PM10 size ranges, are believed to exceed the mass of tailpipe emissions from modern vehicle fleets, as per a study published in Science of the Total Environment this year.

Are they comparing PM2.5 particulates from tires to PM2.5 particulates from tailpipe emissions? I could understand that, but not that total particulate loss from tires exceeds the total mass of tailpipe emissions.

[–] Capricorn_Geriatric@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I guess it might be possible since there isn't something like a catalytic converter for tires (or brakes) and they could also be including EVs or bikes etc. which would inflate the figure

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

for brakes this totally makes sense as the bottom of cars tends to be covered in brake dust but it would imply EV's with regenerative braking would be an improvement.

[–] 30mag@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but tires and brake pads aren't replaced for 20,000 miles or whatever. If you assumed that you lost the mass of the entire set of tires, you'd be burning through 400 gallons of gas at 50 MPG, 800 gallons at 25 MPG in 20k miles. Burning through that much fuel would produce much more mass than one set of tires.