Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?
"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.
“In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not.”
The research is particularly noteworthy, given that one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution is the synthetic rubber in car tyres: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112015017609398126
So it’s not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that’s causing health issues.
And it’s not just exhaust fumes either.
There’s also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.
Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn’t going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769
#tyres #tyre #car #microplastic #microplastics #pollution #environment @fuck_cars #fuckcars
Car tires ARE made of the alternative materials.
Pneumatic tires were originally all natural rubber until synthetics were added due to war shortages.
Just a small aside, your points are all spot on.
Pneumatic tires have always been made of vulcanised rubber though. Natural rubber is way too soft to hold up in this application.
Vulcanised rubber is a bio-based plastic, but being bio-sourced has nothing do with it being biodegradable. And vulcanised rubber isn’t.
There are bio-based-plastics that aren’t biodegradable, and fossil-based plastics that are biodegradable.