Rubber pollution, similar to

plastic pollution Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are catego ...

, occurs in various environments, and originates from a variety of sources, ranging from the food industry

processing Processing is a free graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming ...

chain to

tire wear A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which t ...

. Synthetic and natural rubber dust and fragments now occur in food, airborne as

particulates Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The t ...

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different typ ...

, hidden in the earth as soil pollution, and in waterways, lakes and the sea.

Causes

Tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which t ...

wear is a major source of rubber pollution.Emissions Analytics finds pollution from tire wear can be 1,000x worse than exhaust emissions
/ref> A concern is that, unlike exhaust emissions, vehicle tire wear pollution is not regulated. Some devices are nonetheless being developed in an effort to reduce the amount of particulates coming from the tire and otherwise ending up in the atmosphere. Although not immediately visible to the naked eye, tire dust makes up a significant portion of road debris. Other sources can be artificial turf and rubber

O-ring An O-ring, also known as a packing or a toric joint, is a mechanical gasket in the shape of a torus; it is a loop of elastomer with a round cross-section, designed to be seated in a groove and compressed during assembly between two or more par ...

s and seals.

Classification

Very fine rubber dust particles can depending on the classification be counted among microplastic (because rubber is just another

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

) or separately (because its constituent

monomer In chemistry, a monomer ( ; '' mono-'', "one" + ''-mer'', "part") is a molecule that can react together with other monomer molecules to form a larger polymer chain or three-dimensional network in a process called polymerization. Classification ...

s, the required additives, and the type of chemical bond mesh is slightly different). In a similar vein, rubber pollution is often implicitly mentioned when

is addressed. 6PPD-quinone, an

antiozonant An antiozonant, also known as anti-ozonant, is an organic compound that prevents or retards damage caused by ozone. The most important antiozonants are those which prevent degradation of elastomers like rubber. A number of research projects study ...

used in rubber tires, has been found to kill salmon when it accumulates into waterways from tire wear pollution.

References

{{rubber Rubber industry Pollution

Causes

Classification

See also

References