Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics

Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by highwaylights on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:30PM (#37728269)

Or people just get their groceries delivered. Way more convenient, not expensive anymore (I get unlimited deliveries for a fairly paltry annual fee), and saves on journeys as the truck just loads up on lots of people’s deliveries all at once.

It also scales better - if more people are having groceries delivered then each trucks stops become more closely clustered (unless the computers involved are just doing a poor job).

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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by galangalalgol on Sunday October 01, 2023 @01:49PM (#37728472)

As the tire wear varies with the square of the weight we are comparing:

100x(car weight + grocery weight)^2 Vs (Truck weight + 100x grocery weight)^2

I couldn't find an empty weight for a box truck that could carry that much but assuming 10klbs total, and that grocery weight is negligible to the car, it looks like thebtruck is slightly better. It doesn't seem like a clear win.

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Re:Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics by dragontamer on Sunday October 01, 2023 @07:53PM (#37732242)

> (car weight + grocery weight)^2

That's ^4 actually. Friction / Normal Force / Damage to roads is to the Fourth power law.

Yeah, the 100x lighter cars might actually be better in practice. That's what makes this last-mile problem so problematic. We're already (possibly) at the local optimum.

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