A RECENT feature story by Euronews has revealed the shocking extent of plastic pollution on Earth. The world has known for some time that microplastics, the exceedingly small particles of plastic detritus created when plastic waste degrades, have been found everywhere on the planet — in the soil, in the seas, in the air, and inside human and animal tissues. However, new research by a native Inuit researcher from Greenland reveals that the problem is much more alarming.
The Feb. 14 Euronews article profiled the work of Kristian Louis Jensen, an Inuit citizen of Greenland and a researcher in environmental protection. Jensen’s claim to fame, at least until now, was the development, as part of his master’s degree work, of a water-collection device called the “Plastaq,” which allows community researchers and environmental monitors to collect surface water samples to check for plastic pollutants.
Jensen said the presence of plastic pollution attributable to things like plastic packaging and bottles in waters near settled communities did not come as a surprise, but it made him curious about how far the plastic contamination had actually spread. To investigate this, he set out on a kayak excursion to the most remote part of Greenland, the coastal waters fed by glaciers in the northeastern part of the Arctic island, hundreds of kilometers from any human settlement or road.
As Jensen described it to Euronews, he expected to find microplastic particles and even some larger plastic waste, even in the remote area. But another discovery in his water samples came as a shock: traces of particles from vehicle tires.
“Finding them on a pristine glacier in eastern Greenland was a shock because it validated a terrifying thesis: these particles are no longer just an urban issue,” Jensen was quoted as saying.
“They have become dust, airborne, and have traveled thousands of kilometers to the Arctic. This is ‘fossil fuels in motion.’ It tells us that the Arctic is a ‘sink’ for the world’s pollution,” he added.
The threat posed by tire pollution is not to be taken lightly.
It is estimated that at any given time, there are approximately 5 billion vehicle tires in use on the planet, with perhaps twice that number of discarded tires in existence. It is the ones that are actively being used that are the real problem, however. Depending on the size of the tire, whether the tire is for a small compact car or a large truck, one tire can have a mass when brand new of anywhere between 7 and 22 kilograms. Over its useful lifespan, which of course varies depending on the application but generally averages about one year, a tire will lose between 10 and 30 percent of its mass due to wear. Thus, if we make a thumbnail average of everything, there are about 1.45 million metric tons of tire particles being released into the environment as a form of microplastic pollution every year.
Dr. Jensen said the presence of this pollution had a potent negative effect on the well-being of Greenlanders and other communities in the Arctic. Common chemicals in car tire compounds, such as 6PPD (N’-phenyl-p-Phenylenediamine), which is used to prevent tire compounds from reacting with oxygen in the atmosphere, are lethal to some fish species, particularly salmon. These chemicals have also been found to cause deformities in the eggs of Atlantic cod and other fish species, threatening food supplies. The effects on human physiology from ingesting car tire pollution in water or food, or through breathing the poisoned air, are not yet known, but they are thought to not be good.
We have recently commented in support of efforts over the past several weeks to restart the stalled negotiations toward the development of a global plastics treaty. That perspective has not changed, but the recent findings are worrisome, because in the previous talks, there was no mention of the impact of tire pollution, and the signals being received at the moment indicate it is still a considerable blind spot in the world’s understanding of plastic pollution and possible means to control it.
This needs to change, because it is now clear that any progress that is made toward reducing plastic pollution will be undone if the impact of vehicle tire pollution is ignored. It is something that even the ecologically sound push toward greater adoption of electric vehicles will not address and, in fact, may even make worse. Further study and recommendations on how to make this overlooked technology — the humble car tire — more sustainable are desperately needed.
