Tyre rubber...

[big x]

Good post.When you add brake dust into the equation is it any wonder cancer is so common on this small island.
Each new generation seems to be putting more and more rubber on the road.A C-class has bigger wheels and wider rubber than the older generation S-class.Car weights also increase putting more wear on friction items.
Mothers worry about the content their childs school dinners whilst sitting in their BMW X5's on the school run crawl sitting in a toxic stew.
When I was at school most of us walked there!

adam

May wish you never asked.

There has been lots of research on this in Europe and the US. Found that the rubber particles break down with weathering/UV exposure but usually get washed off the road surface by rain and end up in the groundwater.

Trouble is that tyres contain Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) oils used as extenders in the rubber matrix. So the extender oil will be present in the tyre debris and if that breaks down the PAH's are released which is why they have to be treated as a form of hazardous waste and we get charged a disposal fee.

The compound of some of the stickier performance and winter tyres contains up to 28% PAH's in total. Tyre industry worldwide uses about 1 million tonnes of PAH's per annum and all of that has to go somewhere

So what, you cry. Well the so what is that some PAH's are classed as "c/m/r" substances. c/m/r stands for: Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and toxic to Reproduction

Under an EU directive by 2010 no tyre can contain more than 10mg/kg in total of eight specified PAHs.

A limit of 1 mg/kg is set for Benzo(a)Pyrene (BaP), which is classified as a particularly vile c/m/r. BaP concentrations in extender oils currently can be up to 16mg/kg, averaging 5mg/kg.

Anybody still think standing around a burnout is a good idea?