Pollution is happening where the rubber meets the road.
Scientists have found a new type of pollution, microplastics that are spun off synthetic tires as cars roll on roadways.
It goes by the rather benign name of "tire dust." But its effects are anything but benign. A new study shows this is the first time this type of pollution has been found in any Florida waterway.
Kassidy Troxell is an assistant research professor at Florida International University. She said they chose the Hillsborough River because it flows through a major city: Tampa.
The pollutant is a microplastic and has been found in small – but potentially toxic – concentrations.
"It's incorporated into the plastic to stop its degradation from the sun and UVs, but once the particles wear off the tire, they leach out of the plastics and get into our waterway," she said.
Little research has been done yet into how it can affect marine life. Some of the compound – called 6PPD and 6PPD-Q – has been found to affect the behavior of coho salmon in the Pacific Northwest. The study was recently published in ScienceDirect.
But – there's good news. Troxell said the chemical is considered "sticky" and can easily be trapped in storm drains before it can flow into rivers and lakes.
"They can absorb to different surfaces. So if you have more green infrastructure like grass and things that these compounds can actually stick to before it goes into the catch basin, goes out into the waterway, that's one," she said.
"If there's a way that we can incorporate some technology to just have the stormwater go through some different phases or different filters before it's actually released, that would be a huge one," Troxell said. "They're easy to remove from the water."
