As I read on masto, we should replace the tires with steel to stop the plastic pollution.
Of course to protect the road that would also have to be steel. And we'd need to link all the vehicles together to make best use of the limited steel road surface.
Steel dust quickly turns to iron oxide in the environment, which is a fairly common natural mineral (it's the reason red clay is red). To be fair, there might still be some slight negative effects to ecosystems which do not naturally have a lot of iron oxide at the surface, but that wouldn't even be a rounding error compared to the harmful environmental effects of tires and asphalt. Also, steel dust is very heavy so there's essentially no chance of it getting into the air and inhaled.
In many places, cars are a necessity because of structural issues that we need to solve. They aren't innately required, but our world is built in such a way to require them.
I'm mostly going for the "entirely unnecessary (unlike tires)" thing, especially given consumption levels. I don't think I would've gotten through a single tyres worth of plastic in straws in my lifetime even if they weren't banned.
Like, sure, there is use cases for tyres even in utopia, hell, a tyreless bicycle sounds shit, but we're talking what, like a percent of what is currently used?
Some amount of inflatable tires will always be needed and used. Sure, the vast majority of them are also unnecessary, because most cars are, but humanity will obviously always need some vehicles that transport stuff efficiently without tracks. Bicycle tires also use similar materials.
Plastic straws are still very harmful for many sea animals and are apart from that entirely unnecessary (unlike tires).
As I read on masto, we should replace the tires with steel to stop the plastic pollution.
Of course to protect the road that would also have to be steel. And we'd need to link all the vehicles together to make best use of the limited steel road surface.
(It's trains)
Steel dust quickly turns to iron oxide in the environment, which is a fairly common natural mineral (it's the reason red clay is red). To be fair, there might still be some slight negative effects to ecosystems which do not naturally have a lot of iron oxide at the surface, but that wouldn't even be a rounding error compared to the harmful environmental effects of tires and asphalt. Also, steel dust is very heavy so there's essentially no chance of it getting into the air and inhaled.
I struggle to think of a view where plastic straws are a no no (which I agree) but car tyres aren't. It's both convenience product.
In many places, cars are a necessity because of structural issues that we need to solve. They aren't innately required, but our world is built in such a way to require them.
I'm mostly going for the "entirely unnecessary (unlike tires)" thing, especially given consumption levels. I don't think I would've gotten through a single tyres worth of plastic in straws in my lifetime even if they weren't banned.
Like, sure, there is use cases for tyres even in utopia, hell, a tyreless bicycle sounds shit, but we're talking what, like a percent of what is currently used?
Some amount of inflatable tires will always be needed and used. Sure, the vast majority of them are also unnecessary, because most cars are, but humanity will obviously always need some vehicles that transport stuff efficiently without tracks. Bicycle tires also use similar materials.