Microplastics and nanoplastics in urban air originate mainly from tire abrasion

persumentor

One interesting implication of this is that most discussions about microplastics focus on food or ocean pollution, but urban air exposure might actually be much more constant. Tire abrasion is happening everywhere there is traffic, so people in cities are probably inhaling these particles daily without noticing it. It raises question about particle size distribution. Nanoplastics behave very differently from larger particles and may interact with biological tissues in ways that are still poorly understood... Urban environments might therefore be an important long-term exposure pathway that hasn’t been studied as much as water or seafood contamination

deaux

It's been well known for a while that car tires are the biggest single source of microplastics, but it's nice to have more numbers backing this up. This is one of multiple reasons why Electric cars are much closer to ICE cars in the overall combination of sustainability and societal effects than they are to trains and subways. It's like [ICE cars---Elec Cars---------------------------Trains/Subways] yet even on the relatively informed HN I often see people pretend it's more like [ICE cars-----------------------Elec cars-------Trains/Subways] I think it's most of it is because EVs are shiny and cool and represent technological progress and people feel attached to certain brands. That, along with personal convenience/privilege.

ectospheno

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9851491/ There is no safe level of air pollution. If you haven’t invested in a home air filtration system then you might want to consider it.

metalman

tire dust is one of the primary causes of mass juvinile salmon death, as it contains a biocide to prevent tires from rotting, that acumulates in roadside ditches and can be washed into rivers and streams in aerly spring whem the salmon smolts are vulnerable. Jet fuel also contains a biocide to prevent it bieng degraded by certain algae, along with, well, I'm thinking just about everything else at this point. Oh, wait, sorry, I get it, this about trying to deamonise cars in "urban" "environments" nevermind.