science

14693 readers

137 users here now

just science related topics. please contribute

note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry

Rule 1) Be kind.

lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about

I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

517

7,000 Microplastics Studies Show We Have One Really Big Problem (www.sciencealert.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

96 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Biggest sources:

7.6 Mt from macro plastics breaking down
1.3 Mt from paint
1.0 Mt from tyres

10-40 Mt released into environment/year, and increasing.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I'm kinda surprised that more comes from paint than tires.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think it depends on measure, if im not mistaken, by weight arohnd 50% of microplastics are tire dust.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Also depends on where you’re measuring. They make up a ton of the plastics in stormwater runoff for example. Sometimes up to 95% from what I found. And that stormwater often ends up in our drinking water.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Still both from automobile infrastructure. /c/fuckcars bleeding into every Lemmy...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

You only think that way because the material for a tire is all in one place and easy to see.

Paint on the other hand is effectively invisible when we 'inventory' a space mentally.

So a tire in the middle of your living room seems like a lot of rubber but all the paint over every inch of the wall in the same room doesnt, even if the room is big enough for the paint to fill the volume of the tire.