• Sigma_@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I always understood tire deg to be microplastic/rubber not pm2.5. Brutal for the ecosystem around roadways and water bodies. Ultimately adding to the micro plastic pollution globally.

    • Turun@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      The pm2.5 refers to the particle diameter and incorporates any particles that are less than 2.5 micrometers in size. So particulate matter and microplastics are not necessarily a contradiction

      But good that you brought it up, I did some googling and umweltdialog.de writes that microplastics from tires make up one third of Germany’s microplastics pollution! That’s an insane amount!

      It’s late here, so I won’t read it today, but the Fraunhofer Research Institute did a study called “TireWearMapping”, which promises to contain a ton of information on the creation and distribution of tire based pollutants: https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/de/projekte/tyrewearmapping.html