Tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food.
I’m all for debunking stuff, but about a quarter seems to be the currently accepted quantity to the best of our abilities to measure.
There is a bit of confusion between the amount tyres contribute into the ocean, how much into the ocean and waterways and how much in the environment as a whole. A lot of it ends up in the soil, so it doesn’t contribute to plastics in the water, but still in the environment.
That was an interesting read. I guess tyre fragments (and industrial pellets) are just way bigger than the other big offenders, which would explain why they represent such a huge portion of the total mass, and why they are filtered out “easily”. Overall it seems to me that we really need to categorize the different microplastics better, as the current definition (anything plastic 5mm and under) seems a bit too large, and with all the mix ups, you can always blame something else.
I’ve seen a similar number in a lot of proper scientific sources, so this article may be bunk, but the number is correct I think.
For example this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171003 They claim 27,26% in China.
And this article: https://www.rivm.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/2024-0106.pdf They claim 24.88% in the EU and state it’s among the biggest if not the biggest contributor to microplastics.
I’m all for debunking stuff, but about a quarter seems to be the currently accepted quantity to the best of our abilities to measure.
There is a bit of confusion between the amount tyres contribute into the ocean, how much into the ocean and waterways and how much in the environment as a whole. A lot of it ends up in the soil, so it doesn’t contribute to plastics in the water, but still in the environment.
That was an interesting read. I guess tyre fragments (and industrial pellets) are just way bigger than the other big offenders, which would explain why they represent such a huge portion of the total mass, and why they are filtered out “easily”. Overall it seems to me that we really need to categorize the different microplastics better, as the current definition (anything plastic 5mm and under) seems a bit too large, and with all the mix ups, you can always blame something else.