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Where Has All The Rubber Gone?
Makarand writes "We all recognize vehicle tailpipe emissions to be a source of pollution.
But what happens to the castoff rubber from your tires that have lost tread?
No one knew where this rubbber was going
until recently. Allison Draper, a professor of environmental chemistry
at Bucknell University, is conducting research to end all guess work on
this topic and with the hope of finding ways to make tires less polluting.
She found for every kilometer a car travels, about 90 milligrams of tread wears off in particles ranging in size 10-75 microns.Toxins in the larger suspended particles leach out when exposed to water and the run off harms plant and animal life.
These toxins are still being identified."
I propose genetically engineered rodents whose lung tissue bonds with rubber particles, which in turn are eaten by stray cats that are attracted by extra-potent rodent pheromones. The cats are then collected and forced to vomit. Then the vomit is taken to the Springfield Perpetually Burning Tire Fire and set ablaze! Woah nellie, talk about a flash of insight into the mind of Rube Goldberg!
No one knew where this rubbber was going until recently.
Isn't it obbvious? They're making keybboards out of it now!
Well, I for one am married, so I only use that resource once a month at most. ;-)
cut yr rubber pollution in half (or prob even more) by changing over to a motorcycle
:
added benefits
experience the joy of sweeping through curves on two wheels as opposed to whaling through them on four
riding a motorcycle is so dangerous you will be forced into a state of active meditation everytime you get out on the road
It (polution) starts to become really scarry when you start adding up all of the little things (like this) that you never think about. Especially when you add it's effect to the larger more commonley talked about polution problems.
I remember reading a while back about a guy that convinced Nike to remove a few of the toxins from their rubber soles so they would cause less problems for the environment. I wonder if the same thing could be done with tires.
I remember this question being posed 30 years ago. My rough recollection is that UV light was significant to the decomposition of the "rubber" bits (it's a petrol product) and that they were somehow biodegradable when washed away. It's noteworthy that the stuff doesn't pile up on the side of the road.
... what are the chances of a significant reformulation of tire rubber?
A figure I recall is that Americans use up 100 million tires a year.
The particulates causing asthma could be plausible. Another suspected culprit is diesel particulates or DEP. The particles may be more or less benign, but cause an irritation that might contribute the the rise in asthma and other respiratory problems.
Anyway
It looks like Dr. Draper is taking a very direct method of testing this out -- grind up tires, expose to water, raise test organisms in water. Looks like a very empirical approach.
One thing about the rubber that comes off tires is that it's worn and weathered. Both the surface where the wear is directly, and the particles themselves have had time to oxidize, which is going to change the types of compounds that you'll leach from your samples. More accurate results might be obtained if she took her ground samples, and let them age a bit while exposed to air and sunlight. Some substances would break down or be altered, while other new ones might be formed during this time.
After leaching the particles, you might then pass it through soil samples. Larger particulates will settle out, while some organic substances will bind to clays or be degraded by microbes. The results might be more like what actually ends up in run-off.
If she wanted to take a more reductionist approach, she could obtain the individual substances used in tires, and test them individually against her organisms. Butadiene rubber, Carbon black, Silica (sometimes), Sulfur vulcanizing agents, etc. This ignores any reactions that may occur between the ingredients (probably minimal for some ingredients like carbon black, but extensive for the vulcanizing agents, for example), but gives some hints as to what exactly is causing your problems.
How about the effects of "retread" tires on the environment? Here in BC, we have a lot of big trucks going through. Since new tires are expensive, they get continuous retreads (basically old tires with new tread applied). You see a lot of "gators" on the side of the road, in the road, etc where large portions of the retread have simply come loose and spun away.
Granted, retreading a tire is probably nicer on the environment than bringing out a whole new tire, but not when these retreads are laying along roadsides polluting etc.
Not to mention that some of these suckers are quite large. When they come flying off of big-rig towards you, it would be somewhat of a safety hazard?
90 mg/km = 1 kg per 11111 km =
1 lb or rubber per 3080 miles?
I have 70,000 mile tires on my car, so does that mean that when they're old, my tires will be 22lbs lighter, EACH?
I find this suspect...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I remember reading recently (within the last year) that a naturally occuring bacteria has been found along roadsides that actually break down and digest the rubber debri from tires. Again, these were NATURALLY occurring organisms, not GMOs. The lack of rubber debri buildup had puzzled scientists for years until this discovery.
You've got to remember the second law of thermodynamics: all things move from order to disorder (at least I think it was the second law... :) ). Nature has a way of breaking down just about everything, even our pollution! It may take time, and yes, we can "overproduce" polution, overwhelming the natural process. We simply need to pace production to meet measured, natural remediation. Sometimes, we need to give it a helping hand to make things better (our hand in defying that same "second law" that we are relying on.) Sometimes relying on nature and its cycle is not wise because the presence of certain chemicals in the environment, even if they do get broken down quickly, could cause health problems.
Another thought... When one large volcano erupts once, and we're talking a big blast here, not your typical "I think the mountain god is hungry" type of rumble, Chloro Flouro Carbons (however you spell it) and other polution (typically only linked with modern industrial pollution) are pumped into the environment in volumes in excess of ALL modern pollution over its entire history. Yea, the ash drops the temperature/raises the temperature, causes storms and other hellish environmental catastrophies, but it passes. The cycle catches up, sun goes up, sun goes down.
I'm adamantly FOR environmental responsibility. I am also for a LEARNED response to otherwise fear inciting "discoveries". Think it out. Learn the process. Compare with past evidences. THEN make policy. If something comes up that seems to contradict the policy, follow the same procedures and if the policy is wrong, change it.
Pure environmentalists are great people. We would lack the necessary conscience to take proper care of our environment without them. They are, however, oversensative to their ideals and, so, should not be running the policy. Just like RMS should not be "running" the open source movement. He is a great voice in the frey. Without him, we would not have gotten as far as we have, nor will we get were we need to be without his voice and others like his. The edgyness of his idealism, however, would drive too many people from the cause if he were "in charge". He's a great man in the struggle and his opinion should be listened to and respected. In the same way, environmentalists should be listened to and respected. Just don't give them the keys to the armory! We'd all be dead for stepping on ants!
--==-- I've found Karma to be a relative thing... Ya know, the kind you invite to Christmas...
High performance tires don't "wear" as much as they "age" due to heat changing their chemistry and grip. Go to any roadracing course that is used by motorcycle racers and you will find a) racers selling R compound rubber with two races on it and plenty of tread, but no grip due to heat changing the rubber and b) plenty of street squids wanting to buy it to tell their fellow squids that they have R compound tires on their bike. As long as the wannabe never pushes the tire, he never knows the difference and it wears out in a couple of months anyway (most don't, so everyone wins). Really sticky tires just don't last long, for more than one reason.