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A comment on Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics. Parent comment

Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by avalys on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:06PM (#37728013)
Yes, because we're a wealthy and productive society and the fruits of human progress in the past 300 years have allowed us to build a civilization where nearly everyone can afford to use a multi-ton machine of nearly incomprehensible complexity and sophistication to carry them around, instead of pushing a cart like a peasant 5,000 years ago did.
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by seanp2k2 on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:34PM (#37728314)
Check out eg https://youtu.be/hmk5cxpAfcw where he’s flying by all the cars stuck in traffic on his human-powered peasant wheels.

Auto companies lobbied governments and put out propaganda to get cities to rip out street cars and rail in the early 1900s. They did this to sell more cars, so this is what we get.

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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by avalys on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:53PM (#37728526)
If you want to ban cars from New York City, that's fine with me. Do you realize that NYC makes up 0.008% of the land area in the United States?
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by avalys on Sunday October 01, 2023 @02:37PM (#37729013)
Your young and fit rollerblade dude doesn’t seem to be carrying much in the way of groceries.

What about the mother of three with a disability? Should she push a cart to the grocery store?

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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by undersuit on Sunday October 01, 2023 @03:22PM (#37729537)
Why can't the majority of the people walk to a store and the rest can be serviced by a smaller truck?
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by undersuit on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:15PM (#37728106)
Yes we can afford this now. In the context of "Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics" how long can we afford this? Just like dumping Freon, and CO2 into the atmosphere have long term consequences that require our society to change, how long can we go aerosolizing rubber?
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by seanp2k2 on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:38PM (#37728365)
I wonder how hard it would be to capture this with some kind of aero device in the wheel wells of vehicles. Given what F1 teams can do with aero, it doesn’t seem like a huge stretch to be able to suck up these particles at the source and pass them through a filter bag like a household vacuum or something.
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by uoaei on Sunday October 01, 2023 @02:17PM (#37728773)
That's a fascinating idea. I hope someone (you?) pursues it.
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by wyre on Sunday October 01, 2023 @07:31PM (#37732079)
I think the issue is the particles are from the friction of the road and to effectively collect the particles it would drastically reduce tire clearance, not an issue for F1, but for the consumer market tire clearance is important, for some reason.
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by avalys on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:17PM (#37728130)
Governments have paid very little attention to this problem to date. It seems like regulation on chemical composition of tires might be warranted. I don't have a problem with that.
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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by amanaplanacanal on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:25PM (#37728229)
Unfortunately we have been pushing the costs onto everybody else: as evidenced by climate change and micro plastics. And now the bill is starting to come due.
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