Microplastics in the Ocean? It's Your Car Tires

Research published in Yale Environment 360 shows that harmful particles from car tires are polluting our oceans. In fact, The Pew Charitable Trust reports that 78 percent of ocean microplastics are from synthetic tire rubber. As tires wear, the fine dust gets washed into the subsoil or drains along roads and from there into rivers and onward to the ocean. When exposed to ozone in the atmosphere, a chemical used in tire manufacturing becomes highly toxic to several fish species.

The heavier the vehicle, the more dust produced, and EVs are heavier than ever thanks to their weighty batteries.

And microplastics affect human health. They are unwittingly ingested by marine life, which in turn gets ingested by people who eat fish or animals that are fed fish meal. In a new study published in Medscape Cardiology, patients with carotid artery plaque in which microplastics and nanoplastics were detected had a higher risk for death or major cardiovascular events than those in whose artery plaque particles were not found.