this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2026
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Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I thought car tyres were made of rubber.

[–] lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

On average ~25% of that rubber is synthetic, i.e. pertroleum/plastic based.

[–] dephyre@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Rubber literally grows on tress, and we're like no, plastic please.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There are actual safety concerns with tires. Modern ones are much, much less prone to blowing out on the highway.

[–] Aviandelight@mander.xyz 5 points 2 days ago

It still can happen though. Ask me how I know.

[–] benjirenji@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Rubber is less resistant than the plastics mix we use now.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 5 points 2 days ago

We didn't invest much into developing rubber into a better for for tires. The switch was due to cost & hegemony.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

According to this page it's about that 25% of the whole tyre, where more than half the tyre is not rubber/synthetic rubber but other stuff.

So there is more synthetic rubber than natural rubber. But the mind-blowing thing for me here is that I kind of assumed the whole tyre was synthetic, but they are only 25% plastic and still are the biggest source of mocroplastic.

[–] livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago

But the other stuff is nasty. Total of petrochemicals in a tyre is above 60%. That fabric, carbon black, oils, elastometers, textiles, antioxidantes and additives are all based on petroleum too