A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
dart board;; science bs
rule #1: be kind
...and create a perfect device to disseminate more microplastics as the bond breaks down.
Do you know what happens to your tires when they go from new with full tread to smooth with no tread? Adding some plastic to the road will add very little and may actually reduce some pollution since road-tire interactions can convert some of those plastics/rubbers.
just a little micro plastics, as a treat
Does adding tires and plastic bottles to clinker during cement production increase pollution and microplastics or decrease them?
Ah, yes... the old "acting responsibly here won't completely solve the problem, so we might as well act irresponsibly" argument.
Explain why it is irresponsible. Did you read what I wrote?
Exactly what I came here to say.
What else is all the microplastic from your tires gonna hang out with?
The plastic is already here and unfortunately we haven’t figured out a good way to get rid of it. So instead of polluting our oceans and landfills, why not use it for better roads? At least until we figure out a better solution.
So we shred it to tiny particles and that’s that? Hmm
It’s already shredding naturally. At least this process contains it for longer than it otherwise would, potentially reduces more shedding from tires, and gives it some purposeful existence while we come up with better ideas.
Better than just letting it rot somewhere, right? At least, that’s my take. Maybe it’s wrong, but it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.
Mixing it with a binder, effectively embedding it into a semi buried rock a seems like a slightly safer option than letting it sit out in the sun to be broken down by UV.
Not sure there are any “safe” options tbh but I’d rather it serve some purpose if it’s just going to break down either way, for sure.
Who is leaving it in the sun? It's supposed to be capped off at a landfill. Where it is sequestered to some degree. Any other use liberates the thousands of virtually unregulated additives, and the microplastics themselves.
You realize the microplastics are still released from a capped landfill, right?…
I’m not necessarily saying this is a better option, but you’re talking like a capped landfill is the best solution out there, and hand waving any argument against it.
There’s also the problem of landfills taking decades to fill, with UV breaking down the topmost layer, heat breaking down internal layers, and water flowing through (and needing to be treated in the best case scenario).
It's not great no, the best thing would be to make less of this plastic, and to use less dangerous additives in it. To maybe use the same additives, and study the ones we use. Because it is worse recycling it than dumping it. Yeah the top layer, the capped landfills will eventually leak, they have fires at these landfills, (I heard there was a landfill in like the SW, a huge one, where they've had this fire going for like decades under the trash mountain, and there is nuclear waste lost in there from like the 50s or something they lost.) And the water flowing through, I think at least for some stuff like cement kiln dust they put down layers of plastic, several feet of material, then another layer of plastic, to prevent the water leaching right through, I had hoped they do something to prevent the rain but I guess they probably don't.
There supposedly is exponentially more plastic being produced now than before. Ten years ago they were saying, 90% of all plastic ever produced had been in the last ten years or something. As incredible as that sounds, they had new plastic productions come online since then. I don't know what all new they are using this plastic for. But it doesn't matter how much we recycle it, if we even find a use that is not worse for the environment, the air, the water, the land, plant and animal life, than landfilling it.
This is only one waste problem too. Pfas is ubiquitous, fracking has sullied entire watersheds with every known contaminant, as they use toxic wastes as fracking fluids to get rid of it as much as for it's properties, thanks to exemptions written in Bush's Energy Bills by Dick Cheney. Their deep injection wells to handle the flowback from those fracking operations that have a 15 % failure rate, and allow class 1 waste to be disposed of in class 2 wells because of another exemption in the same bills. Herbicides and other pesticides are overused, especially on crops genetically engineered to take more of those pesticides, fertilizer run off, sewage as fertilizer, but it often has industrial inputs to the sewage, that then gets spread on farm fields, introducing contaminants directly, and furthering run off problems. That is just scratching the surface.
Our national discourse, and laws, on pollutants is dishonest to say the least. Regulators captured, lawmakers are first tier leased to these corporations' trade groups, and a constellation of science and media and lobbyists crafts the alternate reality that furthers their business interests. We are literally poisoning millions of people in some cases so a company can save a modest amount of money on waste disposal. No one would stand for it, if they knew reality. But they trust authority, which has left me convinced that some of these pollutants are making us docile, and trusting of authority, more than before.
and what are the odds that whatever company that is contracted to do the work does not use recycled plastic and instead shreds new plastic, because it is cheaper.
I guess that’s up to whatever process is used by municipalities to decide between vendors, and would encourage you to persuade your local government not to do this should they consider this strategy.
I dunno man. There are no perfect solutions for dealing with plastic waste at the moment. Until we have one, there are worse ways to go about handling it.
you're right. i was just letting my doomerism run rampant on lemmy for a minute.
🦵 🥫 🛣️
Because then it spreads everywhere, instead of being seuquestered into landfills. There are thousands of unregulated additives in plastics too, that get freed, into the air, water. Your opinion is astoundingly ignorant with all due respect.
ITT, people who don't want their healthy petroleum-based asphalt soiled with unhealthy petroleum-based plastics.
ITT: people who don't want their 100% recyclable petroleum-based asphalts replaced with totally unrecyclable plastic-based asphalts
Ftfy
Asphalt is recyclable, you can tear it up, drop it in a mixer and after it heats up you can pour it back out.
ADDING PLASTIC BREAKS THIS PROPERTY. DO NOT ADD PLASTIC TO ASPHALT.
Are you certain of that? There are many kinds of plastic with various plasticity and heat properties.
Well, there are many kinds of plastic, technically, this could be something new. But some places have been adding plastic to asphalt for a while now, it certainly is cheaper in the short/medium term. And who knows, maybe this has different properties from all the existing systems, but I doubt it. I think this is just reporting research findings on the existing systems.
Currently, where I've seen this done, when the road finally does need repair, you have a whole lot of heavy waste to deal with. I don't have exact numbers on hand for what the financial or environmental cost comparisons are, but I think anyone could infer that reusing 100% of the existing material, and adding an extra 20% in order to repave a road is probably going to be a more optimal option when compared to replacing it all and then dealing with a huge amount of waste.
If they can't reuse it 100%, then it shouldn't be considered, obviously. If it adds more microplastic to the environment, then it's bad, obviously. But we have a shitload of plastic waste and if we can find some reusable way to put it to use, that would be preferred.
Also, more microplastics in the environment.
Yes, let's add more cancer to the mix! Forget reinforced concrete and stone on a solid base that is designed to last forever, it must not be possible since we don't do it, nevermind the romans built stuff still in use today.
No, let's mix industrial waste into the cheapest road construction material instead! Great idea guys!. /s
It's good to blend asphalt with this nasty plastic. Roads are known to not be exposed to any sort of high mechanical loads, so no risk of constantly adding micro plastic to the environment.
A lot of micro plastics come from vehicle tires... So adding plastic to the roads would probably double that. Yuck.
The 'quiet' highways in Arizona use ground up tires in their asphalt mix. Doesn't hold up to freezing conditions tho.
Whole lot of false dichotomy going on in this thread.
Yes, tires already produce microplastics but you also don't have to use processes that produce more microplastics by mixing them into a road just because you have big accumulated stores of waste plastics as potential building materials.
You can just say they are end of life and develop a reasonable storage or disposal method that does not reintroduce them into the environment as this could.
That isn't pie in the sky thinking either, there are numerous reactions and processes that allow you to do waste-to-energy with or even high intensity photo-degredation that is capable of producing syngas or even industrial grade hydrogen from this as a feedstock. With secondary scrubbers you can recapture the carbon and other waste products for sequestration.
Yeah wouldn't want to pollute that carcinogenic, lethal mixture of compounds in asphalt.
Is this really a good idea? Nano particles?!
Those are already a thing. This is a proposal to make some use of this already present reality.
PNW has been experimenting with a version of this for a while involving old tires. Rather than let them continue to disintegrate in a landfill somewhere, adding them to newer roads allows the road to withstand freezing weather much better, reducing the need for carbon emitting repairs, increasing road lifespan (and therefore tire lifespan, which in turn reduces microplastic shedding by tires), and gives a second useful life to the plastics we already have.
So given that we can already add crumbled tire waste to asphalt, without adding new types of nano particles to the environment, it seems like this article is yet more greenwashing propaganda the plastics industry trying to find a use for waste plastic.
The article probably is and I’m not pretending to be an expert. Just saying in theory this could be useful ¯\(ツ)/¯
I’m against plastic use where possible, but don’t see a problem in putting what we already have to work if the alternative is to just let it fall apart on its own somewhere else. If we’re going to drown in this stuff might at least get some usefulness out of it.
As long as we don produce more plastic for this purpose, yes
Lol nothing could go wrong
Yeah, but if local councils fix roads less often, how do they convince state governments they need the same amount of money (or more) than they got last year? Pockets don't fill themselves!