First, get your mind out of the gutter. Second, I apologize if this has been covered but my initial search did not show this item. So, with all those caveats…
What happens to all the rubber that rubs off my tires onto the roads? How come the streets aren’t coated in it since the friction between the tire and the street is what causes me to have to replace them so often? And finally, how hot will my tires get before they melt like a popsicle?
A few short answers.
If you live in northern climes, tire dust is part of what makes the snow along the side of the road turn gray & black. In southern climes if you evaporate water from a puddle in the road you’d end up with tire dust amongst other things as well.
So generally, your tires go into the storm sewers. Good thing rubber hasn’t been found to be carcinogenic.
If you drive on a street that has been recently repaved, you will notice a big difference in the way your car handles on it as opposed to an older street.
You won’t have that “groove” that race car drivers have. If you want to see a real “groove” watch some NASCAR or CART races, you will see a distinct black path on the track that the cars follow. If a car gets out of the groove and into the gray, the driver better be ready for his car to do some weird things.
Acording to Tom and Ray Magliozzi of the car talk radio show about half of it is vaporized.
Consider something like 2 million vehicles on the road. Consider at least 4 tires per vehicle, which equal 8 million in all. Each tire is rubbing itself into fragments on the surface of the roads. On the roughest of estimates, assume 1000 tons of tire dust each day is distributed along the roads. 365,000 tons a year. Much goes into the air, to settle back down within a block, much goes into the road side grass, much gets blown about, goes down sewers, dumps into lakes and oceans. A small percentage gets consumed by people and animals.
Rubber from tires is nearly immortal. It doesn’t like to rot in sun or under ground. Tire chippers grind it into pellets to be used in pavement and it outlasts the asphalt. It does not provide any nourishment for plants, insects or animals. Used tires can make long lasting artificial reefs.
Somewhere in the environment, it is piling up, especially alongside heavily used highways. The soils along such roads are not all that good to grow things in except weeds and a variant of tough grass. There are no known studies going on concerning this material and the effects it might cause. No one has checked to determine if it causes or contributes to cancer or lung disease.
In the ocean it might go into suspension, as rubber floats, and be consumed by feeders along with their normal foods, then excreted as indigestible, to sink towards the bottom, to form a layer of muck. There it could build up for thousands of years.
Tires don’t melt since WW2 when vulcanized rubber was invented. Tires can burn, but other than that, they last forever.
Many buildings near freeways and busy streets have a distinct black, sooty band of sorts on them. Could just be grime, but it could also be powdered airborne tire settling down.
If 2 million tires were leaving 1000 tons of rubber on the road every day, that would be one pound of rubber per tire per day. The damn things wear out fast, but not that fast.
What’s with the 2 million vehicles? There are more vehicles than that sold every year in the United States.
Whoops, you said 2 million vehicles/8 million tires. That’s still a quarter of a pound of rubber per day - unlikely.