Anatomy of Rubber Tires

[imp]

A thought occurred to me long ago, I asked opinions at work and of friends, but got little back of solid substance, so I will humbly seek your input:

 

First, tires contain nasty substances, in addition to rubber. It has become illegal to throw tires away, burn them, even store used tires in some locales.

 

Yet, millions upon millions of pounds of tire material must be annually worn away by the roadways of the world, probably, I surmise, deposited thereon and therein of the rough interstices of pavement. Relatively chemically stable, this "tire dust" must be washed away by rains, and blown away by winds.

 

Do you suppose this contribution of finely divided rubber dust adversely affects the condition of the environment? imp

[LookUp2]

A thought occurred to me long ago, I asked opinions at work and of friends, but got little back of solid substance, so I will humbly seek your input:

 

First, tires contain nasty substances, in addition to rubber. It has become illegal to throw tires away, burn them, even store used tires in some locales.

 

Yet, millions upon millions of pounds of tire material must be annually worn away by the roadways of the world, probably, I surmise, deposited thereon and therein of the rough interstices of pavement. Relatively chemically stable, this "tire dust" must be washed away by rains, and blown away by winds.

 

Do you suppose this contribution of finely divided rubber dust adversely affects the condition of the environment? imp

 

The illegality of tire dumping is mostly due to the space they take up and the difficulty of extinguishing fire, plus they tend to drift back up to the surface. In many US states tires are ground up and then placed into landfills legally. There is some concern with heavy metal leaching because of the steel belts in tires, but this is varied by PH levels of water and moisture content of soil.

 

Define adversely affects. Can it be measured as x-parts per million on the surface layer of the road/nearby areas? Probably. Have we seen a direct impact (positive or negative) on the environment due to rubber dust. Not that I am aware of.

[iNow]

Many people are packing used tires full of dirt and using them as walls in homes... a natural insulation in their attempts at more sustatinable living. The homes they build are called Earthships.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

 

 

That, however, is not relevant to your question. I'd suggest, of course it's not "good" for the environment, but "good" is too much of a subjective measure (as implied by lookup2 above).

 

IMO, it's similar to littering, where people throw cups and plastic wrappers out of their car. The difference is that the tire dust addition to the soils and air is not a conscious decision. Either way, though, I think one would have a difficult time arguing that it is somehow not detrimental to the ecology of the area.

[Mr Skeptic]

I doubt that the rubber dust is good for the environment, but the degree of harm that it might have is more important than whether it is harmful or not. In any case, we don't want rubber dust because it means the tires are wearing out and will need replacing. So it is only natural that we will use more and more resilient materials to build the tires. An example is the tires with tiny diamonds in them.

[Phi for All]

I wonder if the tire dust we create in North America drifts elsewhere? Something like 40% of the dust we get in the summer in Colorado has actually blown over from the Sahara in Africa and parts of Asia! I've heard this dust affects coral reefs adversely, so I wonder if our tire dust is affecting organisms outside our country where we're more likely to consider it Somebody Else's Problem.