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Check your tyres: you might be adding unnecessary microplastics to the environment
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Researchers highlight that properly inflating car tyres reduces tyre wear, which in turn lowers the amount of tyre rubber microplastics shed onto roads and washed into the environment, suggesting a simple habit change can have meaningful ecological benefits.
Inflating your cars’ tyres properly isn’t just good for your bank account - it can minimise your environmental footprint too.
More Papers Like This
One of the biggest microplastic pollution sources isn’t straws or grocery bags – it’s your tires
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This article explains how tire wear particles—tiny rubber and plastic fragments shed from tires during driving—are washed by rain into streams, lakes, and oceans, making tires one of the largest sources of environmental microplastic pollution. Understanding tire wear as a dominant microplastic source is essential for prioritizing mitigation strategies, from road design and urban runoff management to rethinking tire material composition.
Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment – urgent action is needed
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Car tyre wear accounts for approximately one quarter of all microplastics released into the environment, with tiny rubber and plastic fragments accumulating in soil, waterways, and food as vehicles drive normally. This source is largely invisible to consumers but represents one of the largest and most difficult-to-control contributors to the global microplastic burden, demanding urgent regulatory and engineering responses.
How your car sheds microplastics into the ocean thousands of miles away
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Researchers found that roads act as conduits for microplastics shed from car tires and brake pads, transporting these particles through stormwater systems and rivers until they reach remote ocean habitats thousands of miles away, linking everyday driving to distant marine pollution.
Vehicle tyres - A key source of microplastics to the environment: Fate, effects, and mitigation strategies
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Every time your car tires touch the road, they shed tiny plastic particles that end up in our air, water, and soil, making tires one of the biggest sources of microplastics in the environment. This review pulls together existing research on where this tire dust ends up and how it affects living things, and while more research is still needed on human health risks, it's a reminder that even routine driving contributes to the plastic pollution we're increasingly breathing in and consuming.
Measures to reduce the spread of microplastic particles from tyre wear : On vehicles, on the road and in the roadside environment
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Researchers reviewed measures to reduce the spread of microplastic particles from tyre wear at the vehicle, road, and roadside environment levels, examining the transport pathways via air, water, and snow and the risks these persistent, potentially toxic particles pose to ecosystems and human health.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.