I keep reading about ways in which the particles coming off car tires are destroying the environment.
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In some cases it’s the microplastics:
[https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/tire-microplastics](https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/tire-microplastics)
In other cases it’s PFAS and related chemicals:
[https://www.ehn.org/chemicals-in-tires-leaching-into-water-2658670400.html](https://www.ehn.org/chemicals-in-tires-leaching-into-water-2658670400.html)
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Is there any reason to believe that this isn’t also an issue with the rubber compounds in MTB tires?
I’ve yet to see MTB tires that don’t wear down and all of that rubber that wears off has to wind up somewhere, right?
Are we tracking terrible things out into the woods and contributing to the destruction of ecosystems?
by timtucker_com
1 Comment
As far as I know there is no reason that this wouldn’t be true for mtb tires. However, the overall impact of mtb bike tires polluting the environment in this way is hugely smaller than that of cars. Plus, keeping people enjoying the outdoors in any way incentivizes protection of outdoor and wilderness areas. Efforts to reduce this pollution should not focus on MTBing. If the sport was eliminated completely is would probably barely even dent the overall amount of this pollution that occurs. There is something to say about where this pollution occurs, but a lot of mountain biking happens in designated areas for it where people may also be hiking, horse-backriding, etc. anyways and it’s better that these areas exist than for them to get destroyed and just paved over. As a society we are much better off focusing on cars. So yes you’re probably contributing to pollution by mountain biking, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. There are better things to worry about when it comes to the environment.