Burning rubber is actually more harmful to the environment than you might think.
Pollution can come in many forms and sizes. One culprit is the wear and tear on car tires.
Corvallis, Oregon – Car tires are a sneaky cause of pollution and should be stopped if we wish to protect the environment. environment.
Car tires become worn out and small pieces of rubber are removed from them. These microplastics are then ground down to make plastics. These microplastics could end up in ecosystems, and eventually in the food that you eat.
According to studies done by ArsTechnicaAnd Hakai magazineUp to 30% of tire rubber wears out, which can lead to polluting microplastics in our environment.
One StudyOver a million tons of microplastics, including car tires, end up in waterways and the atmosphere each year. This contributes to the accumulation of waste in the environment, like the huge amounts of microplastics that are floating in the western US.
Researchers at Oregon State University in Corvallis found that microplastics can cause serious problems for small species.
Susanne brander, OSU assistant, is a specialist in toxic effects of chemicals like microplastics in nature. She ran lab experiments using freshwater and saltwater species in beakers.
Brander and her colleagues added microplastics into the beakers. They found that very small organisms in rivers and oceans move slowly or stop moving altogether when they eat the polluting materials.
The creatures would be easy prey in the wild due to their slow movements. If they have more toxic substances in their bodies after being eaten, it can lead to biomagnification.
It is generally true that toxic substances such as microplastics from tires can be found at the bottom end of a food chain. Each step up the chain will then accumulate more of these toxins until the fish we buy in the shop are full of them.
It turns out that cars don’t just emit pollution from their tailpipes.
