What is a well known 'public secret' in the industry you work in that the majority of outsiders are unaware of?

NotSpez@lemm.ee to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 629 points –
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How much from tires when braking? I was under the impression that tires (edit: cats!) produce more pm2.5 from tires than brakes, which in turn account for more than the exhaust.

I always understood tire deg to be microplastic/rubber not pm2.5. Brutal for the ecosystem around roadways and water bodies. Ultimately adding to the micro plastic pollution globally.

The pm2.5 refers to the particle diameter and incorporates any particles that are less than 2.5 micrometers in size. So particulate matter and microplastics are not necessarily a contradiction

But good that you brought it up, I did some googling and umweltdialog.de writes that microplastics from tires make up one third of Germany's microplastics pollution! That's an insane amount!

It's late here, so I won't read it today, but the Fraunhofer Research Institute did a study called "TireWearMapping", which promises to contain a ton of information on the creation and distribution of tire based pollutants: https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/de/projekte/tyrewearmapping.html