this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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Bicycles

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Rubber counts as microplastic pollution, because it has the same effects: It will not biodegrade, is not healthy to have in your body, but will accumulate there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_pollution

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is there an alternative to rubber tires that does biodegrade?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No afaik but I'd bet there's at least someone working on that - it's needed asap, as car tires shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Wow, that's a lot higher than I expected.

Whoever comes up with a viable solution stands to make a lot of money.

[–] BinzyBoi 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh that's neat! Was always under the impression that it was fine because it being from the rubber tree and how rubber bands can dry out and crumble afterba while

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

I think only about 25% of tire materials are natural. The rest are synthetic rubber, resins and fillers, then metal.

[–] BinzyBoi 1 points 1 week ago

Huh, TIL syntheic rubber is a thing