When Driving, Tires Emit Pollution. And Electric Vehicles Make the Problem Worse
The Tyre Collective does not yet have a name for its device. Hanson Cheng, one of the London-based startup's three co-founders, calls it a “box.” Built to attach behind the wheel of a car, truck, van or bus, it's designed to capture emissions from an oft-overlooked source: tires.
Every vehicle sheds tiny bits of its tires as it rolls, but “where the rubber meets the road” is a bit of a misnomer: The tires on most passenger vehicles contain little natural rubber. Instead, they're made from a stew of petrochemicals, particles of which ultimately wind up in soil, air, waterways and oceans.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature pegs tires as the second leading source of microplastic pollution in oceans, and one 2017 study found a global per capita average of .81 kilograms in tire emissions per year, ranging from .23 kg per year in India to 4.7 kg (roughly 10 pounds) in the US. That may seem minor stacked up against the nearly 300 pounds in plastic waste the average American generates each year, but microplastics are tiny by definition — and an insidious source of toxins that researchers are only beginning to understand.
“When we talk about zero emissions, a lot of that conversation is about electric vehicles,” says Cheng, 30. “But there's a whole world of non-exhaust emissions that also needs to be addressed.”
Switching to electric cars helps to lower carbon emissions — even after accounting for manufacturing and charging batteries — but it actually exacerbates the problem of tire emissions. EVs typically weigh more and accelerate faster than their gas-burning counterparts, which adds to tire wear. The EV transition will also keep the world's fleet of cars growing until nearly 2040, well after the peak for
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