You are here:
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Emerging Environmental Impacts of Tire Wear Particles and Their Chemical Cocktails
Citation:
Mayer, P., K. Moran, E. Miller, S. Brander, S. Harper, M. Garcia-Jaramillo, V. Carrasco-Navarro, K. Ho, R. Burgess, L. Thornton Hampton, E. Granek, M. McCauley, J. McIntyre, E. Kolodziej, X. Hu, A. Williams, B. Beckingham, M. Jackson, R. Smith, C. Fender, G. King, M. Bollman, S. Kaushal, B. Cunningham, S. Hutton, J. Lang, H. Goss, S. Siddiqui, R. Sutton, D. Lin, AND M. Mendez. Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Emerging Environmental Impacts of Tire Wear Particles and Their Chemical Cocktails. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier BV, AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 927:171153, (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.171153
Impact/Purpose:
Tires represent a complex form of pollution consisting of a mix of many toxic substances from microplastics to heavy metals and PAH’s. A recent demonstrated unequivocally that 6PPD, an additive to tires to reduce ozone damage, is highly toxic to salmon in the Pacific Northwest making this an issue of Tribal concern given the cultural significance of salmon the PNW Tribes. Managing and mitigating tires across the range of pollutants is challenging and will grow despite shifts to electric vehicles. This manuscript is a multi-authored effort to synthesize the most current published information about the risks represented by tires as a pollutant source and in it, we describe potential management approaches for attenuating tire pollution, and discuss data gaps critical to improving our ability to manage risk.
Description:
Despite converting to green and electric sources of power, motorized transportation remains dependent upon conventional synthetic rubber tires for operation. Global dependence upon tires produced from natural rubber and petroleum-based compounds, including plastics, represents a persistent and complex environmental problem with only partial and often-times, ineffective solutions. Recent studies on the toxicity of tire leachates and tire particles to salmonids and other organisms demonstrate the harmful impacts of tires on the environment. There are thousands of known and potentially toxic compounds contained in tires. Tire emissions may be in the form of whole tires, tire dust, and chemical compounds, each of which is transported through various atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic routes in the natural and built environments. Production and use of tires generates multiple heavy metals, radionuclides, PAH’s, and nutrients that can be toxic alone or as chemical cocktails. Used tires require storage space, are energy intensive to recycle, and generally have few post-wear uses that are not also potential sources of pollutants (e.g., crumb rubber, pavements, burning). Tire dust emitted during use is a major component of urban runoff and a source of unique and highly potent toxic substances, many of which are currently unknown or poorly described. Thus, tires represent a ubiquitous and complex pollutant that requires a comprehensive examination to develop effective management and remediation. We approach the issue of tire pollution holistically by examining the life cycle of tires across production, emissions, recycling, and disposal. In this paper, we synthesize recent research and data about the environmental and human health risks associated with the production, use, and disposal of tires and discuss gaps in our knowledge about fate and transport, as well as the toxicology of tire particles and chemical leachates. We examine potential management and remediation approaches for addressing exposure risks across the life cycle of tires. We consider tires as pollutants across three levels: tires in their whole state, as particulates, and as a mixture of chemical cocktails. Finally, we discuss information gaps in our understanding of tires as a pollutant and outline key questions to shore up our knowledge and ability to manage and remediate tire pollution.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Emerging Environmental Impacts of Tire Wear Particles and Their Chemical Cocktails