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Editorial: Environmental impacts and risks of car tire and styrene-butadiene rubber: microplastic pollution and contaminant transport
Summary
This editorial introduces a research collection on the environmental impacts of tire wear particles (TWPs) and styrene-butadiene rubber, noting that approximately 2 billion new tires are produced annually while over 1 billion reach end-of-life, with TWPs and tire-road wear particles (TRWPs) representing a major fraction of global microplastic pollution that cannot be solved by vehicle electrification alone.
Every year, almost 2 billion new vehicle tires are produced world-wide. At the same time >1 billion tires reach their end of life. During use, tire wear particles (TWPs) form through abrasion of the rubber material, and in contact with the road surface composites of both materials form tire and road wear particles (TRWPs). These emissions represent a large fraction of total microplastic pollution, and thus a pressing environmental challenge that cannot be counteracted by “green” urbanization through the electrification of car, truck, and airplane fleets. In fact, heavier electric cars may emit even more TWPs and increase the frequency of tire replacements. In addition to TWPs and TRWPs, crumb rubber (CR) produced from end-of-life tires has been a popular low-cost product as infill on artificial grass for outdoor sports pitches, where it has become a substitute for natural grass, sand, or gravel, but is prone to runoff into the surrounding environment.