Vent spews! Have you ever heard of them? I hadn’t! They are the little hairy things that stick out on the edge of new tyres and they result from the manufacturing process. They have no function in the use of the tyre. So, the National Highways report on Environmentally Optimal Tyres recommends that they be removed at source, which seems eminently sensible to me. This is what it says:
🛞 Tyre vent spews are a result of manufacturing and have no useful purpose, but as they fall off once the tyre is in use, are a source of microplastic pollution.
🛞 They can be removed by additional or changed manufacturing steps at a low-cost, and some tyre manufacturers already remove them for cosmetic reasons.
🛞 The vent spews are a small proportion of total tyre emissions, estimated at 0.1-1% of total mass lost, but this still represents 10-100 tonnes of avoidable microplastic emissions each year over the SRN from cars.
🛞 Mandating tyre vent spew removal before sale would eliminate those emissions.
Let’s get on with it 👍
