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Tyre and road wear particles from source to sea
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Researchers traced tyre and road wear particles (TRWP) — tiny rubber fragments shed when vehicles brake and turn — from urban roads into marine sediments, finding that softer tyres with more natural rubber shed more particles and that TRWP concentrations drop sharply with distance from cities. Unlike lighter microplastics that drift widely, TRWP sink quickly and accumulate near urban coastlines, threatening nearshore sediment ecosystems.
Abstract Tyre and road wear particles (TRWP) are an important microplastics contributor to the environment, although direct observations along suggested pathways are virtually absent. There are concerns for both human health and ecosystems from TRWP exposure and leached chemicals. Due to great analytical challenges in detection and characterization, almost nothing is known about the physicochemical characteristics, occurrence, fate and transport of TRWP in the environment. Diverse tyre types exist for different seasons and vehicle profiles, and their formulations are undisclosed proprietary information. Here we show TRWP dispersion in marine sediments, and a direct link between tyre formulation, tread hardness and TRWP emissions. Softer tyres with higher natural rubber and carbon black content generate higher particle wear. Sediment TRWP dominates the microplastics assemblage close to the city, while showing a much more steeply reducing concentration gradient with distance from the source, suggesting different transport behaviour compared to lower density microplastics. This implies that urbanized coastal ecosystems are impacted by the accumulating TRWP, with consequences for sediment ecosystems. One-sentence summary Tyre and road wear particles—The link between tyre formulation, emissions and their spread in the marine environment.
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Tire Wear Monitoring Approach for Hotspot Identification in Road Deposited Sediments from a Metropolitan City in Germany
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Researchers developed a systematic road-sampling approach to identify urban hotspots for tire-and-road wear particles (TRWP) — a major category of microplastic pollution — by sweeping road-deposited sediments at six inner-city monitoring sites. Curves and traffic-light zones accumulated 8x and 3x more styrene-butadiene rubber (a TRWP marker) than straight road sections, respectively. Since tire wear is one of the largest sources of microplastics entering waterways via road runoff, this hotspot mapping method can inform targeted mitigation measures.
Tyre wear particles: an abundant yet widely unreported microplastic?
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Researchers collected tire wear particles from roadside drains and natural environments near a major UK road, finding that these particles are abundant and widespread yet frequently undetected in environmental monitoring, suggesting tyre wear is a major but under-reported microplastic source.
Wheels of Contamination: Car tire microplastics from source to sea
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Researchers traced car tyre microplastics from their generation through environmental transport pathways to eventual deposition in the sea, estimating that more than 55% of tyre-wear particles enter aquatic environments via runoff and atmospheric transport. The study synthesised existing data on tyre microplastic sources, emission rates, and fate to map the full contamination pathway from road surfaces to ocean ecosystems.
Relevance of tyre wear particles to the total content of microplastics transported by runoff in a high-imperviousness and intense vehicle traffic urban area.
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Researchers characterized microplastics and tire wear particles (TWPs) transported by urban stormwater runoff in a highly impervious catchment, finding that TWPs made up a substantial fraction of the total microplastic load in sediments of a stormwater detention reservoir. The study underscores the contribution of road traffic to microplastic pollution entering waterways.
Distribution and accumulation patterns of tire-derived particles in coastal and lake sediments
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Tire and road wear particles (TRWP) — tiny fragments shed every time a vehicle brakes or turns — are among the largest sources of microplastics globally, and this study found them in sediments across 32 of 36 sampling sites in Japanese lakes and coastal waters. Critically, at 30 of those 36 sites, concentrations exceeded levels considered safe for aquatic ecosystems, suggesting widespread ecological risk. The research also found that TRWP tend to travel with fine soil particles and organic matter, offering clues about how these pollutants disperse through river systems and settle in aquatic environments.
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